UC-NRLF 


SB    274    313 


THE  SABBATH 


M.C.BRIGGS.D.D. 


i/r 


THE  SABBATH, 


WHAT-WHY-HOW. 


DAY-REASONS-MODE. 


BY 

M.  C.   BRIGGS,   D.D. 


NEW  YORK:  PHILLIPS  &  HUNT. 

CINCINNATI:  CRANSTON  &  STOWE. 

18*8 


Copyright,  1888,  by 

M.    C.    BRIGGS,    D.D.> 

NEW  YORK. 


' 


KEEP  THE  SABBATH:  WHICH?  WHY?  How? 


rrjv  -fjfjiepav    ra)v  capfiaTuv  ayia&iv  CLVTTJV. 

Remember  the  day  of  the  sabbaths  to  hallow  it — Fourth 
command  in  the  Septuagint. 

And  he  shall  wave  the  sheaf  before  the  LORD,  to  be  accepted 
for  you:  MI  the  morrow  after  the  sabbath  the  priest  shall 
wave  it. 

Oijje  tie  aaflflaTuv,  rr)  £TTi<f>uoK.ovGT)  Big  fiLav  oaflfiarw,  rjTiQe 
Mapia  r/  M.aydahr)vrj,  nai  f]  O^TJ  Mapia,  deupqaai  rov  ratiov. 

After  the  end  of  the  sabbaths  [of  the  now  superseded  dis- 
pensation] as  it  began  to  dawn  toward  the  first  of  the  sabbaths, 
came  Mary  the  Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary  to  see  the  sep- 
ulcher.  Matt,  xxviii,  1. 

in  nnDfcoj  n^  nlrr  nb>y  Disrrnr, 

This  is  the  day  Jehovah  hath  made ;  we  rejoice  and  are  glad 
in  it.  Psa.  cxviii,  24. 

But  Sunday  is  the  day  on  which  we  all  hold  our  common 
assembly,  because  it  is  the  first  day  on  which  God,  having 
wrought  a  change  in  the  darkness  and  matter,  made  the  world, 
and  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour  on  the  same  day  rose  from  the 
dead. — Justin  Martyr. 


PREFACE. 


WITHIN  the  domain  of  Christian  insti- 
tutes and  ethics  the  Sabbath  holds  a 
vital  place.  All  questions  relative  to  the  day 
and  the  uses  of  the  day  command  the  attention 
of  the  thoughtful.  Our  controversy  is  not 
chiefly  with  the  ardent  advocates  of  a  Saturday- 
Sabbath.  These  zealous  people,  students  of  sta- 
tistics tell  us,  amount  to  a  fraction  less  than 
seven  tenths  of  one  per  cent,  of  the  population. 
Their  energy,  liberality  in  denominational  out- 
lays, instancy  in  season  and  out  of  season  in 
propagating  their  doctrines,  and  fidelity  to 
their  Sabbatarian  convictions,  are  to  be  com- 
mended. One  only  regrets  that  their  influence 
is  not  brought  to  bear  in  support  of  the  true 
Sabbath.  Their  genius  of  interpretation — espe- 
cially that  of  the  Saturday-Sabbath  adventists 


6  PREFACE. 

— illustrates  itself  in  specific  results  which  must 
counterwork  each  other,  such  as  formal  feet- 
washing  (now  well-nigh  abandoned,  I  believe), 
the  denial  of  Christ's  divinity,  the  utter  and 
contemptuous  rejection  of  a  supersensuous  nature, 
a  soul  or  spirit  in  man,  and  the  annihilation  of  the 
wicked.  Small  neighborhoods  and  narrowly 
individuals  will  be  diggtratod  by  the  busy  and 
well-meant  obtrusiveness  of  these  people ;  but  no 
imminent  peril  to  Christian  truth  need  be  an- 
ticipated from  a  sect  which  begins  with  Judaism 
and  ends  with  naked  materialism.  A  sect 
which  has  no  stated  commemoration  of  the 
grand  certifying  fact  of  the  Gospel,  the  egersis 
of  the  crucified  Redeemer,  will  not  long  and 
to  any  great  extent  rob  the  world  of  the  "  lively 
hope"  to  which  we  have  been  "  begotten  by  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead." 

A  far  greater  peril  menaces  Christianity  from 
another  quarter.  The  indifference  of  multi- 
tudes of  the  professed  friends  of  the  Sabbath ; 
the  ignorance  of  other  multitudes  of  its  grounds 
and  claims;  the  puerile  pretenses  for  seculariz- 


PREFACE.  1 

ing  the  day  ;  the  facility  of  guilty  compromises ; 
the  pompous  formality ;  the  pride  of  display ; 
the  sensationalism  miscalled  "preaching;"  the 
needless  and  thoughtless  Sunday  travel ;  the  self- 
accommodating  ministerial  exchanges ;  the  Sun- 
day pleasure-seeking  ;  the  feeble  excuses  offered 
for  voluntary  absence  from  the  house  of  God ; 
the  social  visiting^  the  open  profanation  of  the 
Lord's  day  by  excursion-trains  to  camp-meet- 
ings, and  advertised  preaching  in  places  of 
irreligious  resort ;  the  putting  forth  of  the  doc- 
trine of  expediency,  or  precedent,  or  temporal 
benefits,  or  apostolic  example,  or  patristic  usage, 
as  the  only  "  authority"  for  Sabbath-keeping — 
these  are  counts  in  an  indictment  of  many 
church  members,  and  some  ministers,  whose  ex- 
ample is  a  thousand  times  more  damaging  to 
the  Church's  influence  and  the  Sabbath's  proper 
sanctification  than  Saturday-Sabbathism  and 
open-mouthed  infidelity  in  all  their  shapes  and 
names  and  moods  and  tenses.  Here  lies  the 
cause  of  my  alarm  and  the  chief  reason  for  this  in- 
trusion upon  the  attention  of  the  Christian  public. 


8  PREFACE. 

Without  pretense  of  scholarship,  or  ambition 
for  authorship,  or  special  qualifications  of  any 
sort,  I  have  patiently  traced  the  Sabbath  through 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  through  the  Greek 
of  the  Septuagint  and  the  New  Testament,  and 
have  reached  conclusions  which,  with  profound 
deference,  are  herein  submitted  to  Christian 
scholars  and  to  all  devout  students  of  the  Word 
of  God. 

That  there  has  been  a  progressive  interpreta- 
tion of  Scripture,  keeping  pace  with  the  de- 
veloping needs  of  men  and  the  crises  of  ex- 
perience, none  will  deny.  Hence  it  sometimes 
comes  to  pass  that  an  inferior  intelligence,  under 
pressure,  catches  glimpses  and  gleams  of  truth 
which  have  eluded  the  scrutiny  of  abler  minds. 
Many  an  accepted  exposition  is  but  the  suitably- 
worded  consensus  of  the  realizations  of  the 
struggling,  hoping,  trusting,  praying,  poor. 
Truth,  like  liberty,  is  the  child  of  storms.  Trial, 
like  darkness, 

"  shows  us  worlds  of  light 
We  never  saw  by  day." 


PREFACE.  9 

It  has  long  been  clear  to  me  that,  without  a 
distinct  recognition  of  its  divine  and  law-clothed 
authority,  the  Sabbath  would  not  be  able  to 
hold  its  place  against  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 
the  devil.  It  has  been  equally  clear  that,  in 
the  language  of  the  Pastoral  Report  of  the 
great  Methodist  Centennial  Conference,  "a 
spiritual  Church  without  a  Sabbath  is  an  impos- 
sibility." To  borrow  words  from  the  report 
concerning  moral  questions,  submitted  to  that 
same  Conference,  I  am  profoundly  convinced 
that  "  we  cannot  expect  the  world  to  keep  the 
Sabbath  holy  if  the  Church  of  God  fails  to  do 
it.  If  the  Church  desert  her  own  altars  it  is  in 
vain  that  we  call  wicked  men  to  gather  about 
them."  I  have  beheld  with  wonder,  pity, 
and  alarm  the  growing  looseness  of  views  and 
practices  with  respect  to  the  day,  and  have  been 
impelled  to  search  the  Scriptures  with  all  prac- 
ticable diligence,  to  find  an  authoritative  ex- 
pression of  the  mind  of  the  Lord. 

Most  phases  of  the  Sabbath  question  have 
been  discussed  with  an  ability  which  cannot  be 


10  PREFACE. 

exceeded,  and  a  fullness  which  leaves  nothing  to 
be  supplied.  But  there  is  an  argument  which 
I  do  not  find  in  any  of  the  twenty  odd  works, 
small  and  large,  within  my  reach,  and  which  (I 
am  almost  frightened  to  say)  is  to  my  mind  the 
one  conclusive  argument  that,  in  the  end,  must 
close  the  debate.  It  is  purely  scriptural,  and 
does  not  need  the  support  of  collaterals. 

In  the  following  pages  I  undertake  to  do  these 
nine  things : 

First.  To  show  a  commanding  probability 
that  the  Sun's-day  of  the  Sabean  idolatry  which 
prevailed  in  all  the  nations  of  the  East  was  the 
perverted  primeval  Sabbath. 

Second.  To  prove  that  the  Hebrews,  at  the 
time  of  the  Exodus,  were  worshipers  of  the 
Egyptain  Sun-god  Osiris,  symbolized  by  Apis, 
the  golden  bull. 

Third.  To  prove  that  the  day  of  the  Hebrews' 
toilsome  march  from  Eameses  to  Succoth  was 
made  the  initial  of  an  exceptional  weekly  Sab- 
bath, set  back  one  day  from  the  perverted 
primeval  Sabbath,  and  belonging  to  this  pecul- 


PREFACE.  11 

iar  people  alone,  and  during  their  preparatory 
history. 

Fourth.  To  prove  that  the  Sabbath  is  a  sa- 
cred proper  name  by  which  God  designates  a  day 
set  apart  for  holy  uses,  and  means  more  than 
rest,  or  seventh,  or  week,  or  all  of  them  together ; 
and  any  day  to  which  the  name  is  applied  by 
divine  authority  is  a  holy  day. 

Fifth.  To  prove  that  the  Hebrews  had  a 
Sabbath  out  of  the  septenary  order,  and  yet  as 
binding  and  as  much  under  the  force  of  the 
Sabbath  law  as  the  weekly  day. 

Sixth.  To  prove  that  the  Decalogue  is  con- 
stitutional and  universal  law,  while  the  Hebrew 
statutes  and  ceremonials  are  by  their  very  terms 
restricted  to  one  peculiar  people,  and  must 
have  surceased  with  the  dispensation  of  which 
they  formed  important  features. 

Seventh.  To  prove  that  the  fourth  command- 
ment is  irrepealable  on  any  other  supposition 
than  that  the  entire  Decalogue  is  repealed. 

Eighth.  To  prove  that  the  fourth  command- 
ment is  the  law  of  a  movable  festival,  is  obey- 


12  PREFACE. 

able  every-where,  and  demands  an  ordinal  and 
relative  usual  and  convenient  seventh  part  of  time 
in  every  longitude  and  latitude,  and  not  an  ab- 
solute seventh  in  astronomical  and  septenary 
identity  from  the  time  and  place  of  the  original 
institution. 

Ninth.  To  prove  that  the  day  of  our  Lord's 
resurrection  from  the  dead  was  made  and  named 
the  first  of  the  Sabbaths,  as  being  the  restora- 
tion of  the  relative  primeval  Sabbath,  and  first 
by  pre-eminence,  as  being  commemorative  of  the 
grand  certifying  fact  on  which  the  scheme  of 
redemption  is  pivoted. 

If  these  propositions  are  adequately  sustained, 
controversy  is  at  an  end.  The  Sabbath  will  ap- 
pear as  agreeable  to  the  wisdom  and  beneficence 
of  God,  as  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  mankind, 
and  as  imperative  upon  the  conscience  as  when 
the  law  was  given  at  Sinai. 

To  forestall  the  frequent  use  of  Hebrew  and 
Greek  type  I  give  here  the  words  which  will 
oftenest  occur,  together  with  the  spelling  and 
sense  in  English. 


PREFACE.  13 

From  the  Hebrew  are  the  following : 
Shabbath— Sabbath. 
Shabbathon — Solemn  rest. 

Mimmaharath  Hashabbath— The 
morrow  after  the  Sabbath. 
Shabua— Week. 
Shebii — Seventh. 
From  the  Greek : 

2a/3j3arov — aa/30ara — Sabbath — Sabbaths. 
2af3(3aT(*)v — Sabbaton — of   Sabbaths — genitive 
plural. 

TTJS  enavpiov  ro)v  oapparuv — The  morrow  of 
the  Sabbaths. 

'Ej3do^o£ — Hebdomos — Seventh,  week. 
Mia — Mia — One — First   by   priority  or  pre- 
eminence. 
'Hiiepa — Day. 

Let  no  one  infer  from  frequent  references  to 
the  originals  that  he  must  understand  Hebrew 
and  Greek  before  he  can  settle  his  views  on  the 
Sabbath  question.  Any  thoughtful  reader  who 
will  follow  the  argument  with  his  English 
Bible  in  hand  may  reach  perfectly  satisfactory 


14  PREFACE. 

conclusions.  To  have  quoted  all  the  passages 
referred  to  would  greatly  have  swollen  the  vol- 
ume. I  have  therefore  assumed  that  all  who 
are  interested  in  this  grave  discussion  have 
Bibles,  and  will  use  them  according  to  citations. 
It  is  desirable  not  only  to  reach  safe  conclusions, 
but  also  to  know  the  steps  by  which  we  reach 
them.  The  satisfaction  will  well  repay  the  toil. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  SABBATH,  ITS  INSTITUTION,  ITS  PERVERSION  INTO 
THE  DAY  OP  THE  SUN,  ITS  DEGRADATION  TO  SUN- 
WORSHIP 17 

CHAPTER  II. 
THE  MEANING  OF  THE  NAME  SABBATH 30 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE    EXODUS — THE  REVISED  CALENDAR — THE  NEW 

SABBATH 44 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  SABBATH  LAW 60 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  LAW  OF  THE  SABBATH 70 

CHAPTER  YI. 
A  CHANGE  OF  SABBATH  FORETOLD  AND  FORESHADOWED.          Si 

CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  LORD  OF  THE  SABBATH  MADE  THE  FORESHADOWED 

CHANGE,  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  CERTIFIED  IT 101 


16          .  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII.  ™ 

PATRISTIC  TESTIMONY  AND  USAGE 123 

CHAPTER  IX. 
OPINIONS  OF  WISE  MEN 145 

CHAPTER  X. 
THE  GROUNDS  AND  CLAIMS  OP  A  CIVIL  SABBATH. 152 

CHAPTER  XL 
PREVALENT  ABUSES  OP  THE  SABBATH 170 

CHAPTER  XII. 
RIGHT  USES  OP  THE  SABBATH 179 


THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

ITS  INSTITUTION — ITS  PERVERSION  INTO  SUNDAY 
AND  DEGRADATION  TO  SUN  WORSHIP. 

rpHE  SABBATH,  like  marriage,  ,was  in- 
J[  stituted  in  the  time  of  man's  innocency, 
and  is  as  essential  as  marriage  to  the  right 
ordering  of  human  life.  Such  are  the  laws  and 
limitations  of  the  human  understanding  that 
any  species  of  knowledge  lying  outside  the  in- 
tuitive and  sensuous  must  be  preserved  and  pro- 
mulgated by  means  of  set  times  and  institutes 
of  instruction.  The  knowledge  of  God  could 
not  have  been  perpetuated,  even  in  a  sinless 
race — much  less  in  a  race  blinded  and  alienated 
by  sin — without  a  perpetually  recurring  day  for 
bringing  to  remembrance  the  work,  rest,  will, 
and  character  of  Him  who  upholdeth  all  things 
by  the  word  of  his  power. 


18  THE  SABBATH. 

The  divine  record  is  brief  and  explicit.  "  The 
heavens  and  the  earth  were  finished,  and  all  the 
host  of  them.  And  on  the  seventh  [Septuagint, 
etcrri,  kekte,  sixth]  day  God  finished  the  work 
which  he  had  made.  And  he  rested  on  the  sev- 
enth day  from  all  his  work  which  he  had  made. 
And  God  blessed  the  seventh  day  and  hallowed 
it,  because  that  in  it  he  rested  from  all  his  work 
which  God  had  created  and  made."  Gen.  ii,  1-3. 
Here  is  the  memorial  rest-day,  synchronizing 
with  the  dawn  of  human  history  and  undergird- 
ing  the  life  of  man.  The  Sabbath  and  our  race 
began  their  career  together. 

The  next  express  notice  of  the  day  occurs 
twenty-five  hundred  years  later — Exod.  xvi,  23  ; 
where  Moses  speaks  of  it  in  a  way  to  suggest 
that  the  idea  was  familiar  to  men.  The  fre- 
quent references  to  God's  rest  at  creation  as 
the  ground  reason  on  which  the  Sabbatic  insti- 
tute stands,  considered  in  connection  with  the 
word  of  our  Lord  that  "  the  Sabbath  was  made 
for  man,"  man  generic,  to  meet  a  fundamental 
and  universal  need  of  his  nature  and  life,  renders 
it  every  way*- improbable  that  the  race  was  left 


THE  SABBATH.  19 

to  wander  down  the  centuries,  from  Eden  to 
the  Wilderness  of  Sin,  ignorant  of  an  institution 
designed  by  infinite  beneficence  for  the  highest 
good  of  body,  heart,  and  home. 

The  proposition  that  the  Sabbath  was  known 
in  the  infancy  of  the  race  receives  strong  sup- 
port from  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  sep- 
tenary division  of  time.  Such  a  division  is 
arbitrary,  as  not  being  suggested  by  any  thing 
in  nature,  and  not  being  anticipable  on  grounds 
of  physical  and  societary  benefits,  which,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  must  be  learned  by  expe- 
rience ;  yet  it  appears  to  have  prevailed  so  gen- 
erally as  to  preclude  the  hypothesis  of  accident 
and  to  demand  a  rational  theory  of  explanation. 

There  are  supposed  scriptural  allusions  to 
the  weekly  period,  at  a  very  early  date,  such  as 
Gen.  viii,  10-12.  From  his  measuring  time  by 
sevens  it  is  inferred  that  the  weekly  order  must 
have  been  accepted  in  JSToah's  time.  "  The  end 
of  the  days,"  when  Cain  and  Abel  "  brought 
their  offerings  unto  the  Lord,"  Gen.  iv,  3,  4,  has 
been  supposed  to  indicate  a  periodic  day  for 
worship.  More  clearly,  "  The  day  ["  the  day 


20  THE  SABBATH. 

is"  Young's  translation]  when  the  sons  of  God 
came  to  present  themselves  before  the  Lord" 
was,  and  is,  the  hallowed  day.  Job  i,  6 ;  ii,  1. 

This  theory  is  strongly  supported  again  by 
the  fact  that  all  the  heathen  nations  held  to  the 
same  division  of  time,  with  a  superior  or  sacred 
day  as  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  calendar. 
This  fact  we  learn  from  Homer,  Hesiod,  Her- 
odotus, and  other  ancient  writers.  Philo,  the 
Jewish  philospher  of  Alexandria,  says  without 
qualification :  "  The  Sabbath  is  not  a  festival 
peculiar  to  any  people  or  country,  but  is  com- 
mon to  the  whole  world."  Laplace  has  this 
strikingly  philosophic  statement :  "  The  week  is, 
perhaps,  the  most  incontestable  monument  of 
human  knowledge.  It  appears  to  point  out  a 
common  source  whence  that  knowledge  pro- 
ceeded." It  is  certain  beyond  attempt  at  con- 
tradiction that  the  septenary  division  prevailed 
among  Egyptians,  Phenicians,  Babylonians,  As- 
syrians, Greeks,  Italians,  Celts,  and  Indians. 
Chaldean  cuneiform  characters  show  a  weekly 
rest-day,  the  name  of  which  bears  a  striking 
likeness  to  the  Hebrew  Sabbath,  and  means  "a 


THE  SABBATH.  21 

rest  of  the  heart."  That  the  Hebrews  measured 
time  by  weeks,  before  Moses,  is  proved  by  Gen. 
xxix,  27,  28. 

That  the  Sabean  idolatry — the  adoration  of  the 
heavenly  bodies — was  the  first  formulated  idol- 
atry of  the  race  is  strongly  supported  by  the 
judgment  of  scholars.  That  it  was  very  ancient 
does  not  admit  of  doubt.  Job  acquits  himself 
of  any  suspicion  of  thus  denying  "  The  God 
that  is  above."  Job,  xxxi,  26-28.  It  is  certain 
that  the  worship  of  the  sun,  as  the  creator,  pre- 
server, and  fructifyer,  pre vailed ,  among  the 
nations  of  the  East  as  far  back  as  dim  glimpses 
can  be  obtained  of  prehistoric  ages.  When  the 
worship  of  the  true  God  faded  from  men's 
minds  it  was  a  natural  transition  that  the  at- 
tributes and  offices  of  the  Creator  should  be 
transferred  to  the  most  conspicuous  and  power- 
ful natural  object,  and  equally  natural,  if  not 
an  inevitable  sequence,  that  the  periodic  day  of 
special  divine  worship  should  become  the  day 
of  the  sun.  It  is  unquestionable  that  sun- 
worship  was  the  chief  religion  of  most  ancient 
nations,  under  many  images  and  names,  such  as 


22  THE  SABBATH. 

Bel,  Belus,  Baal,  Rah,  Mnevis,  Osiris,  Helias, 
and  Apollo.  So  widely  prevalent  a  religious 
usage  presupposes  a  real  or  assumed  authorita- 
tive origin  of  a  purer  worship  perverted  into 
this  fascinating  idolatry.  Thus  there  is  every 
philosophic  probability  that  when  the  worship 
of  the  living  God  was  degraded  into  the  adora- 
tion of  the  sun  the  day  divinely  appointed  to 
be  hallowed  became  the  sun's  day. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  present  argument  I 
am  concerned  only  with  sun-worship  and  Sun- 
day in  Egypt,  at  and  near  the  time  of  the 
Exodus. 

It  is  needless  -to  enter  upon  an  extended  ac- 
count of  whatever  of  truth  or  fable  has  come 
down  to  our  time  respecting  the  gods  and  god- 
desses who  are  supposed  to  have  held  supreme 
sway  in  the  land  of  the  Nile  long  before  any 
recorded  dynasty.  Long  before  the  Pharaohs, 
Ptah  and  Keith — Sun-god  and  consort — were  su- 
perseded in  Lower  Egypt  by  Ra  (Phra)  the  su- 
preme God  of  the  sun.  Indeed,  the  Pharaohs 
took  their  royal  name  from  Phra,  on  account 
of  some  fancied  relation  which  they  bore  to 


THE  SABBATH.  23 

"  the  King  of  the  gods."  The  gods  of  Upper 
Egypt  bore  different  names,  but  were  Sabean 
divinities ;  and  likeness  of  functions  caused  a 
gradual  amalgamation  of  the  pantheons  of  the 
two  great  provinces  of  ancient  Mizraim,  as  shown 
by  such  compound  titles  as  Ammon-Ka.  This 
at  least  is  clear:  that  before  the  Exodus  two 
great  potentates,  Osiris,  and  Isis — male  and  fe- 
male— ruled  the  worship  of  Egypt,  as  Herodotus 
affirms,  "  from  the  mouth^of  the  Nile  to  Elephan- 
tine." For  convenient  reference  to  a  fuller  ac- 
count see  Christ  and  Other  Masters,  by  Hard- 
wick,  pp.  418-451. 

At  the  time  of  Joseph's  enslavement  the 
capital  of  Egypt  was  Heliopolis,  the  ancient  On 
or  Aon,  the  City  of  the  Sun,  as  both  names 
signify.  It  was  situated  on  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  Nile,  north  of  Memphis,  six  or  eight  miles 
from  Cairo.  It  was  "  the  Eome  and  Oxford  of 
Egypt,"  the  center  of  its  military  pomp  and 
power.  The  two  highest  of  the  privileged 
classes  were  the  priestly  and  the  military.  Every 
king  must  belong  to  one  or  the  other;  and  to 
marry  into  a  priestly  family  was  to  be  admitted 


24  TEE  SABBATR 

to  the  highest  social  elevation.  This  honor 
Pharaoh  conferred  upon  Joseph  by  giving  him 
to  wife  Asenath>  the  da&ghter  of  the  priest 
(probably  high  or  chief  priest)  of  On.  Gen, 
xli,4:5v 

From  such  facts  It  wmild  appear  that  the  only 
rational  explanation  to  be  given  of  the  universal 
veneration  for  Sunday  is  that  that  day  was  the 
perverted  primeval  Sabbath.  This  was  the  faith 
of  the  early  Christian  Church,,  as  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  show  in  place.  But  evidence  strong 
as  proof  of  Holy  Writ  is  f ®und  in  the  fact  that 
all  the  evangelists  and  the  apostles  to  the 
Gentiles  eaH  Sunday,  the  day  of  Resurrection, 
"the  first  of  the  Sabbaths."  Indeed,  resurrec- 
tion-day is  called  nothing  but  Sabbath,  save  in 
the  one  instance  in  which  St.  John  names  it  the 
Lord's  day.  The  truth  of  these  statements  I 
hope  to  demonstrate  in  the  proper  place. 

Here,  then,  we  find  Joseph  and  his  family  and 
their  descendants  in  a  nation  of  sun-worshipers, 
whose  great  religious  day  was  the  day  of  the 
sun.  The  industrial  system  of  that  then  thrifty 
and  powerful  people  must  have  crystallised  about 


THE  SABBATH.  25 

their  day  of  general  public  worship.  Yet  in  all 
the  history  of  the  Hebrews'  day  of  favor  and 
power,  and  of  their  dark  years  of  oppression  and 
enslavement,  there  occurs  not  an  intimation  of  a 
conflict  of  opinion  and  usage  between  them  and 
the  Egyptians  with  respect  to  the  sacred  day  of 
the  week.  It  cannot  be  assumed  that  the  sons  of 
Jacob,  in  the  earlier  periods  of  their  sojourn, 
worshiped  the  golden  bull,  Osiris,  in  the  temples 
of  the  sun.  And  it  is  almost  as  improbable  that 
they  could  have  deranged  the  economy  of  labor, 
in  a  land  where  idleness  was  a  crime  punished 
with  expatriation,  by  worshiping  on  a  different 
day,  without  some  mention  being  made  of  so 
disturbing  a  custom.  It  is  far  more  rational  to 
infer,  in  keeping  with  considerations  already 
advanced,  that  the  Israelites  worshiped  the  God 
of  their  fathers  on  the  same  day  that  the  Egyp- 
tians adored  the  chief  luminary  of  our  system. 

That  in  later  centuries,  as  we  approach  the 
Exode,  the  Hebrews,  enslaved  and  debased,  wor- 
shiped the  chief  divinity  of  their  masters  on 
their  masters'  day,  is  commandingly  probable  in 
the  light  of  the  following  considerations : 


26  THE  SABBATH. 

1.  It  is  in  accord  with  human  nature  that 
bondmen,  for  fear,  conviction,  and  the  hope  of 
favor,  should  accept  the  religion  of  their  masters. 
Witness  the  fact  that  negro  slaves  in  the  South 
were  Catholic  or  Protestant  according  to  the 
faith  of  their  owners  and  overseers. 

2.  It  is  not  in  accord  with  human  nature  to 
suppose  that    their   task-masters  indulged    the 
Israelitish  brick-makers  with  an  exceptional  day 
for  worship,  thus  encouraging  disrespect  toward 
the  religion  of   the  nation  and  deranging  the 
industrial   economy  of  the   country.      Pharaoh 
was  angered  when  Moses  and  Aaron  called  the 
elders  from  their  work  for  consultation,   and 
fiercely  commanded  them  back  to  their  task. 

3.  Among    the    complaints    uttered    by  the 
enslaved  people  not  a  word  is  said  about  the 
deprivation  of  Sabbatic  privileges. 

4.  These  are  strong    grounds  of    inference. 
But  that,  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  they  were 
long-accustomed  sun-worshipers,  and   that  they 
adored  the  deified  orb  in  the  golden  bull,  Apis, 
the  symbol  of  Osiris,  is  demonstrated  by  their 
conduct  at  Horeb.    Moses  was  longer  out  of  sight 


THE  SABBATH.  27 

than  suited  the  habit  of  this  people,  who  lived 
chiefly  in  their  eyes  and  ears  and  stomachs,  and 
they  asked  Aaron  to  make  them  a  god  to  go  be- 
fore them.  He  promptly  molded  and  graved  a 
golden  calf — egel,  a  young  bullock,  a  small  Apis — 
and  built  an  altar  before  it.  Immediately  the 
multitude  began  to  bring  their  offerings  and  to 
dance  about  the  image  in  a  way  so  accustomed, 
so  familiar  and  obviously  habitual,  as  to  preclude 
the  thought  that  it  was  a  new  service.  Reflect 
that  this  people  had  been  three  months  under 
divine  guidance,  witnesses  of  mighty  miracles, 
and  that  it  was  Aaron,  Moses's  brother,  their 
chief  elder,  who  fashioned  the  "  god  of  Egypt ; " 
and  can  any  one  possessed  of  the  power  of 
thought  doubt  that  when  Aaron  "turned  them 
loose,"  in  the  language  of  the  Revised  Version, 
they  eagerly  returned  to  an  idolatry  to  which 
they  had  long  been  habituated  ?  The  transition 
was  too  sudden,  the  descent  from  a  true  religion 
too  great,  and  the  manner  too  expert  to  admit  of 
any  other  explanation.  (See  Exod.  xxxii,  1-24.) 
Deut.  ix,  16:  "And  I  looked,  and,  behold,  ye 
had  sinned  against  the  LORD  your  God,  and  had 


28  THE  SABBATH. 

made  you  a  molten  calf :  ye  had  turned  aside 
quickly  out  of  the  way  which  the  LOKD  had 
commanded  you."  Neh.  ix,  18 :  "  Yea,  when 
they  had  made  them  a  molten  calf,  and  said, 
This  is  thy  God  that  brought  thee  up  out  of 
Egypt,  and  had  wrought  great  provocations." 

Lest  there  should  be  found  a  reader  endowed 
with  that  prodigious  incredulity  which  is  "  credu- 
-  lity  gone  to  seed,"  let  me  add  the  explicit  con- 
firmation of  the  sacred  word.  Josh,  xxiv,  14 : 
"  T  Now  therefore  fear  the  LORD,  and  serve  him 
in  sincerity  and  in  truth ;  and  put  away  the  gods 
which  your  fathers  served  on  the  other  side  of 
the  flood,  and  in  Egypt ;  and  serve  ye  the  LOKD." 
Ezek.  xx,  5-9.:  "And  say  unto  them,  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  GOD;  In  the  day  when  I  chose  Israel, 
and  lifted  up  mine  hand  unto  the  seed  of  the 
house  of  Jacob,  and  made  myself  known  unto 
them  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  when  I  lifted  up 
mine  hand  unto  them,  saying,  I  am  the  LOKD 
your  God ;  in  the  day  that  I  lifted  up  mine  hand 
unto  them,  to  bring  them  forth  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  into  a  land  that  I  had  espied  for  them, 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  which  is  the  glory 


THE  SABBATH.  29 

of  all  lands :  then  said  I  unto  them,.Cast  ye  away 
every  man  the  abominations  of  hig  eyes,  and 
defile  not  yourselves  with  the  idols  of  Egypt :  I 
am  the  LOKD  your  God.  But  they  rebelled 
against  me,  and  would  not  hearken  unto  me: 
they  did  not  every  man  cast  away  the  abomina- 
tions of  their  eyes,  neither  did  they  forsake  the 
idols  of  Egypt :  then  I  said,  I  will  pour  out  my 
fury  upon  them,  to  accomplish  my  anger  against 
them  in  the  midst  of  the  land  of  Egypt.  But  I 
wrought  for  my  name's  sake,  that  it  should  not 
be  polluted  before  the  heathen,  among  whom 
they  were,  in  whose  sight  I  made  myself  known 
unto  them,  in  bringing  them  forth  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt."  Ezek.  xxiii,  3.  Psa.  cvi,  19-21 : 
"  They  made  a  calf  in  Horeb,  and  worshiped  the 
molten  image.  Thus  they  changed  their  glory 
into  the  similitude  of  an  ox  that  eateth  grass. 
They  forgat  God  their  Saviour,  which  had  done 
great  things  in  Egypt."  Acts  vii,  41,  42 :  "  And 
they  made  a  calf  in  those  days,  and  offered 
sacrifice  unto  the  idol,  and  rejoiced  in  the  works 
of  their  own  hands.  Then  God  turned,  and  gave 
them  up  to  worship  the  host  of  heaven." 


30  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER   II. 
THE  MEANING  OF  THE  NAME  SABBATH. 

f  f  r~pHE  term  Sabbath  is  transferred  from  the 
JL  Hebrew,  and  means  rest."  So  Buck, 
Calmet,  Smith,  and  others.  A  few  authors 
attempt  to  emphasize  the  assumption  by  adding, 
"  Nothing  more." 

A  man  of  very  humble  attainments  ought  to 
dissent  from  such  higli  authorities,  if  dissent  he 
must,  with  extreme  deference.  It  has  cost  me — 
as  well  it  might — much  study,  self -searching,  and 
close  thinking,  to  become  bold  enough  to  ques- 
tion the  venerable  proposition  as  untenable ;  but 
necessity  is  upon  me,  and  I  cannot  do  otherwise. 

If  Sabbath  is  Hebrew  must  we  not  trace  its 
use  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  ascertain  its 
meaning?  Turning  to  this  line  of  inquiry,  we 
are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  Sabbath  does 
not  carry  rest  as  its  only,  or  even  its  paramount, 


T11E  SABBATH.  31 

meaning.  Eest  is  a  resultant  sense,  arising  from 
its  relation  to  the  more  vital  uses  of  the  day.  It 
is  a  condition  necessary  to  the  fulfillment  of  the 
higher  uses  of  the  weekly  worship-day. 

If  Sabbath  means  rest  only,  it  must  impress 
us  as  anomalous  that  the  word  is  so  severely 
restricted  to  one  use,  and  has  no  synonyms  or 
interchangeable  terms.  The  Hebrew  has  other 
words  to  express  every  shade  of  rest,  such  as 
manoach,  Psa.  cxvi,  7 ;  menuchah,  Psa.  xcv,  11 ; 
PugaJi,  Lev.  ii,  18 ;  margoa,  Jer.  vi,  16 ;  but 
none  of  these  is  ever  employed  as  a  substitute. 
Shabbathon  is  a  technic  used  exclusively  to 
qualify  Shabbath,  and  carrying  the  sense  of 
solemn  rest.  (See  Exod.  xvi,  23.) 

If  Sabbath  means  rest  only,  then  the  man  who 
suspends  exertion  and  consults  ease  keeps  it,  and 
he  who  slumbers  most  keeps  it  best.  But  is  it 
possible  seriously  to  think  that  such  a  use  fills 
the  scriptural  intent?  An  ox  keeps  its  con- 
sequent Sabbath  by  browsing  in  the  meadows 
and  ruminating  in  the  shade.  A  man  profanes 
the  day  by  resting  only. 

If  Sabbath  means  rest  only,  how  are  we  to 


32  THE  SABBATH. 

justify  the  tautology  of  the  Hebrew  in  employ- 
ing another  word — Shdtihathon — to  express  rest 
as  a  qualifier  of  the  very  name  rest?  As 
samples  see  Exod.  xvi,  23  :  Shabbathon  Shab- 
bath-godesh,  uholy  rest  of  the  Sabbath,  sacred 
to  Jehovah."  Exod.  xxxi,  15:  "The  Sab- 
bath of  solemn  rest,  sacred  to  the  Lord."  Lev. 
xxiii,  32 :  "  A  Sabbath  of  rest."  Lev.  xxv,  4 : 
"A  Sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land"  (A.  V.). 
Must  we  accept  a  rest  of  rest — a  rest  of  the  holy 
rest — a  holy  rest  of  the  rest,  as  the  word  of  the 
Lord  ?  Inevitably  so,  if  Sabbath  means  rest  only, 
or  chiefly. 

The  use  of  the  verb  Shabath,  so  far  as  it  sheds 
light,  confirms  the  assumption  that  Sabbath 
means  much  more  than  rest.  Thus  Gen.  ii,  2, 
and  in  six  other  places,  substantially,  "  He  rested 
on  the  seventh  day."  Conceding  that  the  sev- 
enth day  was  the  Sabbath,  we  have  here  again 
the  awkward  tautology  of  resting  on  the  rest. 
It  is  well  to  notice  in  this  connection  that  Shab- 
ath,  to  rest,  like  Shabbathon^  is  used  only  in  con- 
nection with  the  appointed  day  of  worship. 
Let  it  also  be  noted  in  passing  that  the  Septua- 


THE  SABBATH.  33 

gint  renders  Gen.  ii,  2,  KareTravas  rrj  rjfjiepa  TTJ  e/3- 
6op,i],  Katepause  te  hemera  te  hebdome ;  ef.  Exod. 
xii,  15,  16 ;  xiii,  6;  xvi,  26,  27,  29,  30 ;  xx,  10, 
and  many  other  places,  where  it  will  be  observed 
that  both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  keep  up 
a  marked  distinction  between  the  rest  and  the 
day.  If  Sabbath  meant  rest  simply,  it  could 
be  adjoined  to  any  other  day  as  well  as  to  the 
seventh. 

If  Sabbath  means  rest  only  how  are  we  to  ex- 
plain the  preparation  of  the  show-bread,  the 
offering  of  double  sacrifices,  the  labors  of  the 
great  choir  and  orchestra,  and  the  laborious 
reading  and  expounding  of  the  prophets  and  the 
law  on  that  day  ? 

Possibly  some  one  is  ready  to  ask  if  there 
could  be  a  Sabbath  without  rest  in  the  sense  of 
the  suspension  of  secular  toil.  No !  But  there 
could  be  a  thousand  rests  in  that  sense  without  a 
Sabbath.  Such  rests  may  occur  on  the  seventh  . 
day,  and  yet  amount  only  to  a  desecration.  If 
man  were  animal  only  that  sort  of  rest  would 
meet  his  necessities,  as  it  does  those  of  the  lower 

orders  of  life.      If   man  has   a   supersensuous 
3 


34  THE  SABBATH. 

nature,  a  soul,  a  spirit,  proper  Sabbath-keeping 
for  him  must  involve  and  engage  his  higher  pow- 
ers, relations,  and  duties.  He  cannot  keep  the 
sacred  day  holy  by  idling  or  sleeping. 

That  Sabbath  means  more  than  rest  is  strongly 
supported  by  the  better  rendering  which  the 
Revised  Version  of  the  Old  Testament  gives  to 
Shabbathon,  namely,  a  solemn  rest.  This  fact  I 
have  already  anticipated. 

For  additional  references  see  Lev.  xvi,  31 ; 
xxiii,  3 ;  xxv,  4,  5  ;  Exod.  xxxv,  2. 

Sabbath  carries  the  sense  of  seventh — which 
has  sometimes  been  claimed  as  an  inseparable 
meaning — much  as  it  carries  rest,  as  an  accidence 
of  signification.  Seventh  supervenes  upon  the 
law  of  periodicity.  A  seventh  has  no  more  in- 
herent virtue  than  a  sixth  or  a  fifth.  It  is  an 
incident  of  the  ordinal  succession  of  days.  It  is 
a  day  which  follows  the  sixth  day  of  labor.  It 
is  "  every  seventh  day,  not  the  seventh  day  in 
exact  astronomical  order — dies  septenus,  not  dies 
Septimus" — (Dr.  Schaff).  Hence  we  could  not 
substitute  a  tenth,  or  eighth,  or  twelfth.  It  is 
every  recurring  seventh  convenient  and  ordinary 


THE  SABBATH.  35 

division  of  time,   in   every   part  of  the  globe 

where  men  live  and  die. 

v 

The  Sabbath  was  founded  on  a  septenary  di- 
vision of  duration.  Few  will  attempt  to  main- 
tain that  the  days  of  creation  were  solar  days. 
Yet  the  law  of  periodicity,  the  physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual  needs  of  human  kind,  and  the 
fundamental  convenience  of  society  would  make 
it  a  solar  day  in  those  latitudes  where  most  of 
our  race  dwell.  There -was  something  natural, 
therefore,  in  the  erroneous  rendering  which  The- 
ophilus  mentions  to  Autolycus :  "  Most  know 
not,"  says  he,  "  that  what  among  the  Hebrews 
is  called  the  Sabbath  is  translated  into  Greek 
the  '  seventh'  (ipfafidfy  a  name  which  is  adopted 
by  every  nation,  although  they  know  not  the 
reason  of  the  appellation." 

If  Sabbath  means  seventh  we  have  again  a 

cumbersome  and   meaningless  reduplication  of 

terms   in   both"  the    Hebrew   and   the    Greek. 

[any  times  shebii  is  connected  with  Sabbath  for 

iesignation.     See  as  samples  Exod.  xvi,  26  :  "  Six 

days  ye  shall  gather  it ;  but  on  the  seventh  day, 

which  is  the  Sabbath,  in  it  there  shall  be  none." 


36  THE  SABBATH. 

Exod.  xx,  10.  "  But  the  seventh  day  is  the  Sab- 
bath of  the  LOKD  thy  God :  in  it  thou  shalt  not 
do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daugh- 
ter, thy  man-servant,  nor  thy  maid-servant,  nor 
thy  cattle,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is  within  thy 
gates." 

Lev.  xxiii,  3.  "  Six  days  shall  work  be  done  : 
but  the  seventh  day  is  the  sabbath  of  rest,  a 
holy  convocation :  ye  shall  do  no  work  therein: 
it  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  LOKD  in  all  your  dwell- 
ings." 

In  all  such  constructions  the  theory  that  Sab- 
bath means  seventh  (hebdomas)  encounters  the 
absurdity  of  the  seventh  seventh;  the  seventh 
day  is  the  seventh  day,  etc.  But  I  scarcely 
needed  to  refute  a  theory  which  has  no  very  able 
supporters. '  Yet  a  weak  theory  may  harm  the 
weak. 

Nothing  favorable  to  the  assumption  with 
which  we  are  just  now  dealing  can  be  rationally 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  Sabbath  usually 
marked  the  weekly  division  of  time.  I  say  usually, 
because  it  sometimes  marked  divisions  of  years ; 
and  in  one  instance,  at  least,  it  was  an  annual 


THE  SABBATH.    .  37 

day,  wholly  out  of  the  septenary  order,  as  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  show.  True,  from  Sabbath  to 
Sabbath  was  usually  a  week.  So  from  Tuesday 
to  Tuesday,  or  Sunday  to  Sunday,  is  a  week. 
The  Greek  appears  to  have  no  specific  word  for 
week,  and  therefore  uses  hebdomas,  from  eTrra, 
hepta,  seven.  The  Hebrew  uniformly  uses  sha- 
~bua,  not  Shabbath,  nor  Shabbathon,  for  week. 
See  Gen.  xxix,  27.  "Fulfil  her  week  and  we 
will  give  thee  this  also  for  the  service  which  thou 
shalt  serve  with  me  yet  seven  other  years." 

Exod.  xxxiv,  22.  "  And  thou  shalt  observe  the 
feast  of  weeks,  of  the  first-fruits  of  wheat  har- 
vest, and  the  feast  of  ingathering  at  the  year's 
end." 

Num.  xxviii,  26.  "  Also  in  the  day  of  the  first- 
fruits,  when  ye  bring  a  new  meat-offering  unto 
the  LOED,  after  your  weeks  be  out,  ye  shall  have 
a  holy  convocation ;  ye  shall  do  no  servile  work." 

Deut.  xvi,  9.  "  Seven  weeks  shalt  thou  num- 
ber unto  thee  :  begin  to  number  the  seven  weeks 
from  such  time  as  thou  beginnest  to  put  the 
sickle  to  the  .corn." 

2  Chron.   viii,  13.  "  Even  after  a  certain  rate 


38  THE  SABBATH. 

every  day,  offering  according  to  the  command- 
ment of  Moses,  on  the  Sabbaths,  and  on  the  new 
moons,  and  on  the  solemn  feasts,  three  times  in 
the  year,  even  in  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread, 
and  in  the  feast  of  weeks,  and  in  the  feast  of 
tabernacles." 

Jer.  v,  24.  "  Neither  say  they  in  their  heart, 

Let  us  now  fear  the  LOED  our  God,  that  giveth 

rain,  both  the  former  and  the  latter,  in  his  sea- 

*  son :  he  reserveth  unto  us  the  appointed  weeks 

of  the  harvest." 

Dan.  ix,  27.  "  And  he  shall  confirm  the  cove- 
nant with  many  for  one  week :  and  in  the  midst 
of  the  week  he  shall  cause  the  sacrifice  and  the 
oblation  to  cease,  and  for  the  overspreading  of 
abominations  he  shall  make  it  desolate,  even  un- 
til the  consummation,  and  that  determined  shall 
be  poured  upon  the  desolate." 

The  Greek  New  Testament  employs  terms 
with  perfect  discrimination,  using  hebdomas  only 
twice — Heb.  iv,  4 — and  that  by  way  of  quota- 
tion from  Gen.  ii,  2,  where  the  Hebrew  uses 
yom  hashbii,  day  seventh.  In  all  other  places, 
sixty-eight  in  number,  it  gives  the  proper  name. 


THE  SABBATH.  39 

Sabbaton,  and  always  as  the  sacred  rest-day  (or 
year)  of  the  Old  Dispensation  or  the  New. 

I  have  already  incidentally  answered  the  as- 
sumption that  Sabbath  means  week.  'A  little 
reflection  will  convince  us  that  this  theory  carries 
its  advocates  into  inextricable  absurdities.  If 
the  embarrassments  of  the  case  have  not  occurred 
to  the  reader  let  him  substitute  week  for  Sab- 
bath in  a  few  passages  and  be  convinced. 

SABBATH    IS   THE    SACRED   PROPER    NAME   OF  A 
MOVABLE   FESTIVAL. 

I  am  now  prepared  to  support  the  proposition 
that  Sabbath  is  a  sacred  proper  name,  used  ex- 
clusively, when  not  applied  to  the  year  or  the 
land,  to  designate  a  day  set  apart  and  consecrated 
to  the  suspension  of  physical  labor  in  order 
to  the  edification  of  the  spirit  by  the  devout 
memorial  study  of  God's  works,  word,  and  ways. 
The  verbal  noun  Sabbatismos,  in  Heb.  iv,  9,  is 
not  an  exception.  It  expresses  a  Sabbatism,  a 
full,  active,  adoring  rest  in  the  world  to  come, 
when  time-Sabbaths  shall  have  ended  with  the 


40  .THE  S ABB  ATE. 

human  probation  in  and  for  which  they  are  vital 
and  most  beneficent  provisions. 

Sabbath  occurs  one  hundred  and  three  times 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  its  equivalent  Greek 
term  one  hundred  times  in  the  Septuagint,  and 
sixty-eight  times  in  the  New  Testament.  And 
in  all  cases,  save  the  nine  which  relate  to  years 
and  the  land  (and  figuratively  thare),  it  is  a  sa- 
cred proper  name,  of  which  neither  seventh,  nor 
rest,  nor  week,  nor  all  of  them  together,  can  be 
accepted  as  an  adequate  translation.  It  needs 
only  an  intelligent  tracing  of  the  term  through 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  or,  for  that  matter, 
through  our  English  Version,  to  put  its  proper 
meaning  and  office  beyond  rational  doubt.  Sab- 
'baton  and  its  inflections  maybe  followed  through 
the  Septuagint  and  the  New  Testament  with 
like  results. 

The  curious  reader  may  have  noticed  the  re- 
mark that  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the  He- 
brew Scriptures  is  said  above  to  employ  the 
name  Sabbath  three  less  times  than  the  original 
which  it  translates.  It  may  be  well  to  explain 
this,  slight  and  only  disagreement  All  of  the 


THE  SABBATH.    .  41 

instances  occur  in  Lev.  xxiii,  11,  15,  and  16. 
The  Passover  Sabbath  was  the  15th  of  Nisan, 
Mimmaharoth  Hashabbath — the  morrow  after 
the  Sabbath — the  Jew  was  to  bring  the  sheaf  of 
first-fruits  to  the  priest,  to  be  waved  before  the 
LORD  in  token  of  gratitude.  The  Greek  has 
re  erravpiov  rr)g  TrpuTrfcte  epaurion  tes  protes — the 
morrow  after  the  first — that  is,  the  first  day  of  the 
beginning  of  the  feast,  which  would  be  the  16th 
of  Msan,  corresponding  with  our  Sunday. 
Greel^,  rrjg  enavpiov  ruv  aa(3l3ara)v — the  morrow 
of  the  Sabbaths.  In  verse  16  we  have  r^  enav- 
piov  rrjs  eo%ar?7^  tes  epaurion  tes  eschates — the 
morrow  after  the  last — that  is,  the  last  day  of  the 
feast;  esehates,  last,  being  relative  to  protes,  first. 
The  third  case  is  verse  15,  last  clause ;  "  seven 
sevens  "  in  the  Greek. 

King  James's  Version  gains  two  Sabbaths  by 
mistranslation  of  Skabbathon,  in  Lev.  xxiii,  39, 
which  error  the  Revised  Version  corrects. 

For  the  convenience  of  such  readers  as  may 
not  have  access  to  complete  concordances  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  or  of  the  English,  which 
could  answer,  and  yet  may  wish  to  make  a 


42  THE  SABBATH. 

thorough  personal  examination,  I  give  here  a  list 
of  all  the  passages  which  contain  the  name  Sab- 
bath. 

In  the  Hebrew,  Shabbath  may  be  found  one 
hundred  and  three  times,  as  follows : 

Exod.  xvi,  23,  25,  26,  29  ;  xx,  8,  10,  11 ;  xxxi, 
13, 14, 152, 16 ;  xxxv,  2, 3.  lev.  xvi,  31 ;  xix,  3, 30 ; 
xxiii,  32,  11,  152,  16,  322,  88;  xxiv,  8;  xxv,  2,  4, 
6,  82 ;  xxvi,  2,  342,  35,  43.  Num.  xv,  32  ;  xxviii, 
9,  10.  Dent,  v,  12, 14, 15.  2  Kings,  iv,  23 ;  xi, 
5,  7,  92 ;  xvi,  18.  1  Chron.  ix,  32 ;  xxiii,  31. 
2  Chron.  ii,  4 ;  viii,  13 ;  xxiii,  4,  82 ;  xxxi,  3 ; 
xxxvi,  21.  Neh.  ix,  14;  x,  312,  33;  xiii,  152, 
16,  17,  18,  193,  21,  22.  Psa.  xcii,  (title).  Isa.  i, 
13;  Ivi,  4;  Iviii,  132 ;  Ixvi,  23.  Jer.  xvii,  21, 
222,  24,  272.  Lam.  ii,  6.  Ezek.  xx,  12,  13,  16, 
20,  21,  24;  xxii,  8,  26;  xxiii,  38;  xliv,  24;  xlv, 
17;  xlvi,  1,  3,  4,  12.  Hos.  ii,  11.  Amos,  viii,  5. 
The  Septuagint  follows  the  Hebrew  except  in 
the  places  designate  1. 

To  all  who  have  followed  the  preceding  rea- 
sonings and  traced  out  the  citations  it  must  be 
apparent  that  there  is  a  distinction  between  the 
essential  Sabbath  and  the  day  of  its  celebration, 


THE  SABBATH.    .  43 

as  there  is  between  American  independence  and 
Independence  day.  If  God  had  consecrated  the 
sixth  or  eighth  day  to  Sabbath  uses,  as  the  initial 
of  a  perpetual  recurrence,  it  would  have  been  as 
sacred  as  the  seventh.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that 
a  transfer  of  Sabbath  to  the  eighth  or  first  day, 
if  done  by  competent  authority,  would  in  no 
manner  or  degree  abrogate  or  infract  the  Sab- 
bath law,  nor  necessitate  any  modification  of  its 
terms,  "  Remember  the  sabbath  day  to  keep 
it  holy"  would  be  as  fitting  an  enjoinment  of  the 
duty  as  though  no  change  had  been  made.  The 
Septuagint  has,  fjivrjo^n  TTJV  fyepav  ruv  oapparuv 
dyia&iv  av-sv — Remember  the  day  of  the  Sab- 
laths  to  hallow  it.  The  Jews  had  more  Sab- 
baths than  one.  The  holiest  of  all  their  Sabbaths, 
as  I  shall  show  in  place,  occurred  but  once  a 
year,  and  was  wholly  out  of  the  septenary  order. 
Yet  the  law  applied  as  forcefully  to  that  as  to 
the  other. 


44  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  EXODUS  —  THE  REVISED  CALENDAR  —  THE 
NEW  SABBATH. 


we  now  to  the  Exodus.  Here  was  an 
\j  ignorant,  debased  people  to  be  led  out  of 
bondage  and  planted  in  a  world-center,  to  be- 
come the  custodian  of  the  light  of  lights  to  the 
nations.  These  slaves  were  the  children  of 
promise.  To  them  were  to  pertain  the  adoption 
and  the  glory  and  the  covenants  and  the  giving 
of  the  law  and  the  promises.  Theirs  were  the 
fathers,  and  of  them,  as  pertaining  to  the  flesh, 
CHRIST  was  to  come.  To  human  eyes  they  were 
an  unpromising  race  for  such  a  mission  ;  but 
God's  promise  to  Abraham  could  not  fail  of  ful- 
fillment. These  rude  and  stiff-necked  people 
must  be  recovered  from  idolatry,  and  awed  and 
terrified,  surprised  and  melted  into  a  just  appre- 
hension of  the  supremacy  of  the  living  God. 
"What  a  work  !  And  how  was  it  to  be  accom- 


THE  SABBATH.  45 

plislied  ?  God  always  deals  with  men  according 
to  the  laws  of  their  life.  The  u  fullness  of  the 
time  "  could  not  come  otherwise  than  by  ages  of 
prophecies,  providences,  proofs,  and  experiences. 
How,  then,  could  the  prerequisite  reformation 
of  this  horde  of  Hebrew  helots  be  effected  ? 

First  of  all,  Moses  was  fitted  for  leadership. 
Possibly  in  the  archives  of  the  court  he  had 
traced  the  record  of  Joseph  and  had  become 
fired  with  some  as  yet  vague  purpose  of  deliver- 
ance for  his  kindred.  Noble  and  self-forgetting 
as  he  was,  his  strong  nature  needed  forty  years 
amid  the  mountains  of  Midian,  in  sacred  inti- 
macy with  the  God  of  his  fathers  to  bring  his 
lofty  and  imperious  spirit  into  adoring  harmony 
with  the  supreme  will. 

Then  the  cupidity,  tyranny,  and  pride  of 
power  of  Pharaoh  and  his  subjects  were  to  be 
overcome.  Judgment  followed  judgment  in 
awful  and  resistless  procession,  till  the  death  of 
the  first-born  in  palace  and  hovel  extorted  a 
mighty  cry  of  anguish,"  mingled  with  which  was 
a  prayer  to  the  Hebrews  to  depart  quickly  out  of 
the  land. 


46  THE  SABBATH. 

It  must  be  assumed  that  many  items  and  inci- 
dents of  preparation  failed  of  record.  Here  were 
"  six  hundred  thousand  that  were  men,  besides 
children,"  and  here  were  "  very  much  cattle  and 
a  mixed  multitude  "  to  accompany  and  compli- 
cate the  march.  Such  a  multitude  could  never 
have  moved  in  spontaneous  order  without  a 
miracle  greater  than  the  dividing  of  the  sea. 
Doubtless  "  the  rulers  and  elders  of  the  people  " 
had  been  assigned  their  places  and  well  instructed 
in  their  several  parts.  A  great  amount  of  quiet 
preparation  must  have  preceded  the  actual  out- 
starting.  Thus  the  awful  night  of  the  passover 
found  every  thing  in  readiness.  With  girded 
loins  and  staves  in  hand  the  people  waited  for  the 
first  streak  of  dawn  and  the  wrord  of  command. 

Association  is  strong.  Habit  is  a  chain  of 
steel.  This  people  must  be  effectually  separated 
from  the  old  life ;  from  temple,  altar,  set  days, 
and  all  the  concomitants  of  sun-worship.  Sab- 
eanism  prevailed  not  only  in  Egypt,  but,  as 
Maimonides  affirms,  "  had  filled  the  whole  world." 
They  would  encounter  it  among  the  tribes 
through  which  they  passed  and  in  the  land  to 


THE  SABBATH.  "  47 

which  they  were  going.  Dr.  Watson  and  many 
others  of  the  learned  think  that  the  Zabii  (Sabe- 
ans)  "  were  probably  the  first  corrupters  of  the 
patriarchal  religion."  The  taint  of  this  seductive 
idolatry  was  in  the  air.  Every  tie  which  bound 
the  Israelites  to  this  infatuating  worship  must  be 
severed,  and  the  chosen  keepers-in-trust  of  the 
divine  oracles  must  be  set  apart  like  an  island  in 
the  sea.  For  this  purpose  they  needed  a  new 
order  of  months  and  a  new  beginning  of  their 
year.  Such  a  counteractive  and  educating  re-ad- 
justment of  the  calendar  was  one  of  the  methods 
resorted  to  by  divine  wisdom.  The  seventh 
month  of  the  Egyptian  year  was  made  the  first 
of  the  Hebrew.  Exod.  xii,  1,  2  :  "  And  the  LORD 
spake  unto  Moses  and  Aaron  in  the  land  of 
Egypt,  saying,  This  month  shall  le  unto  you  the 
beginning  of  months :  it  shall  be  the  first  month 
of  the  year  to  you."  Exod.  xiii,  4  :  "  This  day 
came  ye  out  in  the  month  Abib."  Deut.  xvi,  1 : 
"  Observe  the  month  of  Abib,  and  keep  the 
passover  unto  the  LOKD  thy  God :  for  in  the 
month  of  Abib  the  LORD  thy  God  brought  thee 
forth  out  of  Egypt  by  night." 


48  THE  SABBATH. 

Abib  exchanged  places  with  Tisri  and  thence- 
forth became  the  first  month  of  the  Hebrew 
sacred  year.  Reverently  speaking,  what  a  stroke 
of  divine  policy  was  that !  This  strange  people, 
destined  to  stand  alone  in  all  the  earth,  had  not 
so  much  as  a  yearly  calendar  in  common  with 
surrounding  nations.  They  were,  indeed,  to  be 
a  "  peculiar  people."  But  that  feature  of  hea- 
thenism which  was  most  ensnaring,  because  fullest 
of  suggestions  of  the  all-prevalent  sun-worship, 
was  the  corrupted  primeval  Sabbath,  the  Sunday 
of  idolatrous  devotion.  If  the  order  of  months 
needed  to  be  changed,  how  immeasurably  more 
this  day,  so  pregnant  with  evil !  Should 
Israel,  already  tainted  with  idolatry,  march 
through  and  past  tribes  and  nations  on  a  new 
mission,  toward  a  new  land,  with  a  new  first 
month  and  a  new  year,  and  carry  the  old  Sab- 
bath, now  Sunday,  rife  with  vile  solicitations 
and  furnishing  a  wide  door  of  contact  with  all 
that  was  most  prevalent  and  pernicious  ?  To  an 
unbiased  inquirer  the  supposition  is  an  impeach- 
ment of  the  wisdom  of  their  divine  Deliverer. 
There  was  the  strongest  anterior  probability  that 


THE  SABBATH.  49 

he  who  was  about  to  lead  them  out  of  bondage 
and  pollution  would  give  them  a  new  Sabbath 
to  complete  their  new  environment,  thus  closing 
the  doors  of  heathen  temples  against  their  re- 
entry. Under  the  laws  of  human  thought  this 
last  expedient  would  appear  most  essential  of  all. 

THE  DAY  OF  THE  EXODE  WAS  MADE  THE  SAB- 
BATH OF  THE  HEBREWS. 

On  the  night  of  the  14th  of  Abib  the  anxious, 
hopeful  supper  of  the  passover  was  eaten.  Exod, 
xii,  6,  8 :  "  And  ye  shall  keep  it  up  until  the 
fourteenth  day  of  the  same  month:  and  the 
whole  assembly  of  the  congregation  of  Israel 
shall  kill  it  in  the  evening.  And  they  shall  eat 
the  flesh  in  that  night,  roast  with  fire,  and  un- 
leavened bread ;  and  with  bitter  herbs  they  shall 
eat  it."  And  the  ready  host  stood  waiting  for 
the  dawn.  "  This  is  that  night  of  the  LOED  to 
be  observed  of  all  the  children  of  Israel  in  their 
generations."  Exod.  xii,  42.  And  because  of 
its  solemn  interest  and  memorial  significance 
they  were  to  commemorate  it  by  beginning  their 
Sabbath,  unlike  Sundays  and  civil  days,  in  the 


50  THE  SABBATH. 

evening  instead  of  midnight  or  morning.  This 
was  another  mark  of  their  complete  setting  apart 
among  the  nations,  as  was  their  worshiping 
with  faces  toward  the  west,  in  tabernacle  and 
temple,  instead  of  toward  the  east  as  sun- worship- 
ers did. 

The  command  to  go  forward  on  the  morning 
of  the  15th  of  Abib  was  God's  proclamation  of 
emancipation,  and  the  day  of  their  deliverance 
was  the  day  of  days.  Nations  monument  their 
great  days.  It  is  wise  in  them.  The  commem- 
orative celebration  of  epochal  days  is  a  valuable 
method  of  instruction.  Surely  such  an  event  as 
the  deliverance '  of  a  whole  people  from  intol- 
erable bondage  could  not  fail  to  be  memorialized 
by  the  people  of  whose  history  it  formed  so 
signal  a  part. 

The  time  and  fact  of  the  exode  were  cele- 
brated by  the  great  annual  feast  of  the  passover, 
as  also  by  the  perpetual  memorial  observance  of 
the  day  of  their  departure  from  Rameses  as  the 
Israelitish  Sabbath.  Exod.  xiii,  3,  4,  8  :  "  And 
Moses  said  unto  the  people,  Remember  this  day, 
in  which  ye  came  out  from  Egypt,  out  of  the 


THE  SABBATH.  51 

house  of  bondage ;  for  by  strength  of  hand  the 
LORD  brought  you  out  from  this  place:  there 
shall  no  leavened  bread  be  eaten.  This  day 
came  ye  out  in  the  month  Abib.  And  thou  shalt 
show  thy  son  in  that  day,  saying,  This  is  done 
because  of  that  which  the  LOKD  did  unto 
me  when  I  came  forth  out  of  Egypt."  (Exod. 
xxiii,  15) :  "  Thou  shalt  keep  the  feast  of 
unleavened  bread :  thou  shalt  eat  unleavened 
bread  seven  days,  as  I  commanded  thee,  in  the 
time  appointed  of  the  month  Abib ;  for  in  it 
thou  earnest  out  from  Egypt :  and  none  shall 
appear  before  me  empty."  Exod.  xxxiv,  18 : 
"  The  feast  of  unleavened  bread  shalt  thou  keep. 
Seven  days  thou  shalt  eat  unleavened  bread,  as 
I  commanded  thee,  in  the  time  of  the  month 
Abib :  for  in  the  month  Abib  thou  earnest  out 
from  Egypt."  Num.  xxxiii,  3  :  "  And  they  de- 
parted from  Kameses  in  the  first  month,  on  the 
fifteenth  day  of  the  first  month  ;  on  the  morrow 
after  the  passover  the  children  of  Israel  went  out 
with  a  high  hand  in  the  sight  of  all  the  Egyp- 
tians." At  midnight  of  Abib  14  the  first-born 
were  smitten.  All  day  of  the  fifteenth  the  great 


52  THE  SABBATH. 

host,  burdened  with  baggage,  cumbered  with 
flocks  and  herds,  even  "  very  much  cattle,"  toiled 
on  toward  Succoth,  without  taking  time  to  rest 
or  cook  food.  Yet  this  same  fifteenth  of  Abib 
w^as  evei^  after  a  Sabbath  of  holy  rest,  the  initial 
of  a  perpetually  recurring  weekly  commemora- 
tion of  their  deliverance.  The  Sabbath  was  to 
be  an  ever-recurring  reminder  that  it  was  God 
who  sanctified  them — set  them  apart  from  the 
nations.  See  also  Deut.  v,  15  :  "  And  remember 
that  thou  wast  a  servant  in  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  that  the  LOKD  thy  God  brought  thee  out 
hence  through  a  mighty  hand  and  by  a  stretched- 
out  arm  :  therefore  the  *  LORD  thy  God  com- 
manded thee  to  keep  the  sabbath  day."  This 
reason  could  apply  to  no  other  people. 

-  Was  this  the  Sabbath  which  they  had  been 
used  to  observe  ?  Or  did  God  give  them  a  dis- 
tinctive Sabbath  ?  Happily  there  are  two  points 
of  a^g^ment  between  our  Saturday-Sabbath 
brethren  and  ourselves.  First,  we  agree  that  the 
children  of  Israel  made  their  first  day's  march 
on  the  15th  day  of  Abib.  Second,  we  agree 
that  this  was  Saturn's  day,  which  ever  after  was 


THE  SABBATH.      .  53 

the  Hebrew  Sabbath.  The  only  question  in  de- 
bate is,  Was  this  a  Sabbath  which  they  had  pre- 
viously kept,  or  was  it  made  a  Sabbath  to  them 
as  an  exceptional  and  peculiar  people  ?  Satur- 
day-Sabbath writers  strenuously  maintain  that  it 
was  the  patriarchal  Sabbath,  the  pristine  seventh 
day,  the  only  Sabbath  ever  given  to  mankind. 

We  think  we  have  already  shown  cogent  and 
conclusive  reasons  for  rejecting  the  Saturday- 
Sabbath  theory.  The  thoughtful  reader  needs 
only  to  remind  himself  that  the  Egyptians  were 
sun-worshipers  centuries  before  the  time  of 
Joseph ;  they  were  sun- worshipers  when  Jacob 
and  his  other  sons  settled  in  the  land ;  there  is 
nowhere  an  intimation  of  contrariety  of  views  as 
to  the  day  specially  set  apart  for  public  worship ; 
it  is  a  fair  inference  that  the  Hebrews  worshiped 
God  and  the  Egyptians  Osiris  on  the  same  day ; 
this  agreement  became  a  necessity  when  the 
Hebrews  multiplied,  even  under  Egyptian  task- 
masters, and  fell  into  the  order  of  Egyptian  in- 
dustrial life ;  at  the  time  of  the  exode  the  Israel- 
ites had  been  long  enslaved  and  were  deeply 
debased ;  it  took  forty  years  of  miracles,  chas- 


54  THE  SABBATH. 

tisements,  and  elaborate  instruction,  and  finally 
the  extinction  of  all  but  two  of  the  entire  adult 
population  which  came  out  of  Egypt,  to  prepare 
them  to  be  trusted  in  Canaan;  Aaron,  their 
chief  elder,  made  the  golden  calf,  and  the  people 
hastened  to  worship  it.  Add  to  these  reasons, 
stated  in  a  former  chapter,  the  fact  that,  if  the 
idolatrous  Hebrews  distinguished  Saturn's  day 
at  all  it  was,  in  every  probability,  to  observe  the 
feast  of  Saturn,  the  most  loathsome  of  all  the 
heathen  feasts.  Also  the  fact  that  the  confusion 
of  the  rulers  and  people  with  respect  to  the  first 
Sabbath-keeping  in  the  Wilderness  of  Sin  indi- 
cates that  the  day  was  new  to  them.  Exod.  xvi, 
22-29 :  "  See,  for  that  the  LORD  hath  given  you 
the  [a]  sabbath,  therefore  he  giveth  you  on  the 
sixth  day  the  bread  of  two  days :  "  v.  29.  It 
is  obvious  from  the  history  that  there  was  a  re- 
centness  about  it.  Had  that  Sabbath  been  a  long 
and  sacredly  familiar  day  such  differences  would 
have  been  impossible.  Also  add  that  three  of 
the  reasons  assigned  for  keeping  the  Sabbath, 
namely,  1.  To  commemorate  the  new  covenant 
made  with  them  in  Horeb.  Deut.  v,  2,  3 :  "  The 


THE  SABBATH.  55 

LORD  our  God  made  a  covenant  with  us  in  Ho- 
reb.  The  LORD  made  not  this  covenant  with 
our  fathers,  but  with  us,  even  us,  who  are  all  of 
us  here  alive  this  day."  2.  To  remind  them 
perpetually  that  God  had  sanctified  or  set  them 
apart  from  other  peoples.  Exod.  xxxi,  13: 
"  Speak  thou  also  unto  the  children  of  Israel, 
saying,  Verily  my  sabbaths  ye  shall  keep  :  for  it 
is  a  sign  between  me  and  you  throughout  your 
generations ;  that  ye  may  know  that  I  am  the 
LOKD  that  doth  sanctify  you."  3.  To  celebrate 
their  deliverance  from  slavery.  Deut.  v,  15 : 
"  And  remember  that  thou  wast  a  servant  in  the 
land  of  Egypt,  and  that  the  LORD  thy  God 
brought  thee  out  thence  through  a  mighty  hand 
and  by  a  stretched-out  arm :  therefore  the  LORD 
thy  God  commanded  thee  to  keep  the  sabbath 
day."  These  reasons  could  apply  to  no  other 
people.  Finally,  for  the  present,  reflect  that  if 
the  15th  of  Abib  was  their  holy  day,  their  Shdb- 
bath  Shabbathon,  before  the  Exodus,  as  it  was 
ever  after,  not  only  were  new  reasons  assigned 
for  recognizing  its  obligation,  but  God  com- 
manded the  most  conspicuous  desecration  of  his 


56  THE  SABBATH. 

own  appointed:  Sabbath  that  human  history  re- 
cords. See  that  immense  concourse,  sweating 
under  their  heavy  burdens,  driving  their  flocks 
and  herds,,  surging  like  a  sea,  with  much  more 
than  the  noise  of  a  marching  army  of  a  million 
men,  and  say  if  you  ean  persuade  yourself  to  be- 
lieve that  God  ordered  all  this  to  take  place  on 
the  day  in  which  men  were  not  to  do  their  own 
work,  nor  seek  their  own  pleasure,,  nor  speak 
their  own  words,  nor  think  their  own  thoughts ! 
Men,  women,  children,  servants,  cattle  were  to 
rest  on  GkxTs,  Sabbath,,  in  order  that,  his  worship 
might  engage  the  undistracted  mind  of  alL  Put 
this  law  and  use  of  the  day  side  by  side  with  a 
divine  command  to  marchr  carry  kneading- 
trough^  and  driv/ji'te-  stock  through  all  the  weary 
day ! 

Let  mer  at  this  point,  direct  attention  more 
specifically  to  a  Sabbath  out  of  the  septenary 
order,  alluded  to  on  preceding  pages.  "We  have 
already  seen  that  the  word  Sabbath  carries 
seventh  only  as  an  ordinal  incident  of  meaning. 
Those  who  choose  to  turn  to  Lev.  xxiii,  27-32> 
will  see  that  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh  month 


THE  SABBATH.  57 

(Tisri),  the  great  day  of  atonement,  was  to  be 
Shabbath  Shabbathon,  a  Sabbath  of  solemn  rest, 
throughout  their  generations.  The  Septuagint 
renders  the  name  Sabbata  Sdbbaton  the  Sab- 
bath of  Sabbaths.  In  the  Hebrew  calendar,  as 
revised  at  the  Exodus,  the  1st,  8th,  15th,  22d, 
and  29th  of  the  seventh  month,  as  of  the  first, 
were  always  Sabbaths.  Here,  then,  is  a  specially 
enjoined  Sabbath  occurring  between  the  8th 
and  the  15th,  which  were  septenary  Sabbaths,  five 
days  before  the  Migra-godesh,  the  holy  con- 
vocation which  introduced  the  feast  of  taber- 
nacles. This  great  fact,  while  it  refutes  the 
notion  that  seventh  is  an  inseparable  sense  of 
Sabbath,  shows  with  the  utmost  clearness  that 
any  day  to  which  God  applies  the  name  has  all 
possible  sacredness  and  lawfulness. 

A  little  above  it  is  stated  that  Abib  (Nisan 
after  the  great  captivity)  and  Tisri  have  the 
same  number  of  days  and  Sabbaths  in  the  same 
order.  For  the  reader's  convenience  I  will 
transcribe  the  Mosaic  calendar,  giving  the  Sab- 
baths in  every  month. 


58 


THE  SABBATH. 

THE   MOSAIC   CALENDAR. 


1.  Abib-Nisan  (Nissan)  has  Sabbaths.  .  . 
2    Zif-Ijar  (lyar)   

1 

ft 

8 
IS 

15 
90 

12 

27 

29 

3    Sivan      

11 

18 

95 

4    Thammuz  (Tarnuz)  

9 

q 

16 

93 

SO 

5    Ab  (Av)     

7 

14 

21 

2H 

6.  EM  (Elool)  

5 

1? 

19 

96 

7    Tisri-Ethanim  (Tishru)  

1 

8 

15 

29 

99 

8.  Bul-Marchesvan  (Chesvan)  

6 

IS 

?0 

97 

9    Caslen  (Kislev)  

/I 

11 

18 

?5 

10.  Thebet  (Tevise)  ,  

?, 

q 

16 

9'-} 

80 

11.  Sliebet  (Shevat)  

7 

"M 

?! 

98 

12.  Adar  

5 

1? 

19 

96 

Elul,  the  sixth,  of  the  Mosaic  calendar,  has 
thirty-two  days;  Adar,  the  last  month  of  the 
sacred  year,  has  thirty-two  or  thirty-nine  days. 
In  the  latter  case,  it  has  five  Sabbaths,  the  fifth 
of  which  occurs  on  the  thirty-third. 

The  foregoing  table  I  transcribe  from  a 
valuable  work  entitled  The  Christian  Sabbath, 
Viewed  in  the  Light  of  Scripture,  Chronology, 
and  History,  and  the  Claims  of  Sabbatarians 
Shown  to  be  Untenable.  By  Eev.  D.  B.  Byers, 
with  an  introduction  by  Bishop  Dubs,  D.D. ; 
published  by  W.  F.  Schneider,  214-220  Wood- 
land Avenue,  Cleveland,  O.  I  give  in  parentheses 
the  more  modern  Jewish  spelling  of  the  names. 


THE  SABBATH.  59 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  first  and  seventh 
months  begin  with  the  Sabbaths,  have  the  same 
number  of  Sabbaths  and  Sabbaths  falling  nec- 
essarily on  the  same  days.  The  first  day  of  the 
passover  was  always  a  Sabbath,  and  always  fell 
on  the  fifteenth  of  Abib.  The  first  day  of  the 
feast  of  tabernacles  was  also  Sabbath,  and 
always  fell  on  the  fifteenth  of  Tizri.  These 
feasts  and  the  distinctive  Sabbaths  associated 
with  them  were  confined  to  one  people  in  their 
preparatory  history,  and  passed  away,  as  to  any 
obligation  which  they  conveyed,  with  the  dis- 
pensation of  which  they  were  parts. 


60  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  IY. 
THE   SABBATH   LAW. 

I  HE  AETILY  indorse  the  strongest  sentences, 
on  both  sides  of  this  controversy,  with  respect 
to  the  universal  need,  practicability,  educative 
utility,  sacredness,  and  perpetual  obligation  of 
the  Sabbath.  The  knowledge  of  God  cannot  be 
perpetuated  without  such  a  day,  nor  can  vital 
godliness  flourish  where  it  is  lightly  esteemed. 
The  Church  is  to-day  suffering  serious  enfeeble- 
ment  for  want  of  a  well-kept  Sabbath.  The 
institute  is  for  man  as  man.  It  would  have  been 
needed  had  our  first  parents  and  their  posterity 
continued  in  innocency.  It  is  absolutely  indis- 
pensable now.  But  an  institution  so  necessary  to 
human  weal,  yet  so  often  crossing  to  greed  and 
the  love  of  pleasure,  could  not  be  left  to  caprice 
or  "the  light  of  nature."  Its  experienced  and 
proclaimed  physical,  mental,  moral,  social,  do- 


THE  SABBATH.  61 

mestic,  and  political  benefits  do  not  deter  men 
from  desecration.  The  "  Continental  Sabbath" — 
much  better  than. none — is  a  striking  proof  of 
the  need  of  the  distinct  recognition  of  the 
authority  of  underlying  law.  In  all  human 
experience  on  the  high  plane  of  Christianity  law 
must  assert  itself,  and  prepare  the  way,  before 
love  will  supersede  the  demand  for  its  enforce- 
ment. There  must  be  a  Sabbath  law.  The  need 
is  profound,  beneficent,  universal,  imperative. 

WHERE    SHALL   WE   FIND    IT? 

Let  us  recall  the  sublime  mission  and  divine 
guardianship  of  the  Hebrews.  Doubtless  many 
things  important  to  them,  but  not  requisite  to 
show  "  the  footprints  of  God  in  human  history," 
do  not  appear  in  the  record.  Only  the  great 
particulars  are  given.  Glance  at  these.  At 
midnight  the  death-blast  swept  through  all  the 
dwellings  of  the  Egyptians.  At  dawn  the 
Hebrews  commenced  their  journey.  The  line  of 
march  was  marked  out  for  them.  From  Rameses 
to  Succoth ;  from  Succoth  to  Etham  in  the  edge 
of  the  wilderness ;  from  Etham  they  turned  again 


62  THE  SABBATH. 

unto  Pihahiroth,  "  which  is  before  Baalzephon," 
and  "pitched  before  Migdol,"  near  the  sea. 
Here  they  discovered  that  they  were  pursued, 
and  here  the  sea  was  divided. 

It  has  been  inconclusively  argued  that  the 
fleeing  host  rested  a  whole  day  at  Succoth  for 
purposes  of  Sabbath-keeping  and  thankful  sacri- 
fices. From  this  assumption  is  drawn  the  infer- 
ence that  the  sixteenth  of  Abib  was  the  Sunday 
of  the  Egyptians  and  the  patriarchal  Sabbath  of 
the  Hebrews.  The  large  element  of  speculation 
renders  this  argument  valueless  for  sober  pur- 
poses of  proof.  The  fact  that  the  sixteenth  was 
Sunday  is  not  disputed.  But,  that  fact  con- 
ceded, the  question  remains  broadly  open 
whether  the  one  party  would  have  postponed 
their  angry  pursuit,  or  the  other  their  alarmed 
flight,  on  that  account.  And  the  theory  that  the 
Hebrews  tarried  at  Succoth  to  sanctify  a  proper 
patriarchal  Sabbath,  besides  being  wholly  gratu- 
itous, is  negated  by  the  certainty  already  estab- 
lished that,  up  to  that  time,  they  had  kept 
Sabbath  only  as  the  sun's-day.  The  incident  of 
their  baking  bread  from  the  dough  brought  in 


THE  SABBATH.  63 

their  kneading-troughs  from  Rameses  was  simply 
a  matter  of  sumptuary  necessity. 

The  fugitives  had  journeyed  at  least  three 
days,  with  whatever  intervals  of  rest,  before 
their  pursuers  came  in  sight.  Num.  xxxiii,  3-8. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  Egyptians  had 
their  dead  to  bury,  even  "all  their  first-born 
which  the  Lord  had  smitten  among  them ; "  then 
to  get  "  six  hundred  chosen  chariots,  and  all  the 
chariots  of  Egypt,  and  captains  over  every  one  of 
them,  and  all  the  horses  and  chariots  of  Pharaoh, 
and  his  horsemen  and  his  army  "  into  marching 
array.  They  must  have  been  in  eager  and  wrath- 
ful haste,  to  pursue  so  soon.  The  king  thought 
he  had  his  runaways  hemmed  in  by  the  wilder- 
ness and  the  sea,  and  by  great  expedition  he 
might  capture  them  near  home.  In  such  an 
exigence  it  is  not  probable  that  either  party 
suspended  exertion  for  a  worship-day. 

What  a  scheme  of  object-teaching  God  pro- 
vided for  this  people!  After  the  divided  sea 
came  Mara,  manna,  Eephidim,  and  the  great 
victory  over  Amalek.  What  a  destiny  must  be 
in  prospect  for  a  people  under  such  tutelage ! 


64  THE  SABBATH. 

At  length,  on  the  fifteenth  of  the  third  month, 
they  came  into  the  wilderness  of  Sinai.  Here 
they  received  such  communications  and  beheld 
such  wonders  as  were  never  before  vouchsafed  to 
man.  Here  were  given  them  minute  directions 
for  building,  furnishing,  and  frequenting  their 
tabernacle;  the  order  and  manner  of  their  an- 
nual feasts ;  statutes  and  judgments  for  the  reg- 
ulation of  their  lives ;  directions  concerning  the 
tribes  and  nations  they  wrere  to  pass  or, encounter ; 
specified  penalties  for  a  long  list  of  offenses; 
promises  of  special  providential  interpositions  in 
the  exigencies  of  the  journey  they  had  under- 
taken; the  ordination  of  a  priesthood  and  the 
appointment  of  sacrifices  and  sacred  vestments — 
all  of  which  ceased  when  Christ  entered  into  the 
Holy  of  Holies  by  his  own  blood,  and  became 
our  High-priest  in  heaven — and  an  instructive 
but  burdensome  code  of  ceremonial  law,  which 
lost  its  significance  when  Jesus  died  and  rose 
again.  These  statutes,  judgments,  and  ordinances 
were  adapted  to  the  condition  and  mission  of 
this  one  people,  and  could  not  be  made  to  fit  any 
other.  They  were  of  the  nature  of  special  legis- 


THE  SABBATH.  65 

lation.     See  Exod.  xxiv  to  xxxii ;   also  parallel 
chapters  in  Leviticus  and  Deuteronomy. 

It  is  too  obvious  to  require  argument  that 
many  of  these  statutory  regulations  were  wise, 
timely,  and  practicable  only  for  this  one  people, 
and  were  destined  to  pass  away  with  the  dispen- 
sation to  which  they  appertained.  But  there  was 
a  body  of  CONSTITUTIONAL  LAW  committed  to 
Israel  in  trust  for  all  mankind.  This  code  was 
not  written  by  Moses  on  parchment  or  papyrus, 
but  by  the  finger  of  God  on  tables  of  stone. 
The  Ten  Words,  Ten  Commandments,  Decalogue, 
is  applicable  to  all  people  in  all  times.  It  is  fun- 
damentally necessary  to  the  order  and  happiness 
of  the  race  in  all  lands,  under  all  changes  of  gov- 
ernment, laws,  language,  and  education.  The 
great  nations  have  recognized  its  vital  value  and 
builded  their  systems  of  jurisprudence  upon  it. 
Its  philosophy,  breadth,  and  completeness  are  the 
wonder  and  admiration  of  the  wise.  It  is  unlike 
the  statutory  and  ceremonial  codes  in  that  it- 
postulates  no  particular  people,  is  limited  by  its 
relations  to  no  particular  dispensation,  commands 
no  sacrifices  or  ceremonial  observances  adjusted 


66  THE  SABBATH. 

to  a  particular  chapter  of  history,  has  no  penal- 
ties attached,  and  in  its  structural  plan  is  incon- 
testably  framed  for  universal  use. 

In  this  code  we  find : 

First.  The  recognition  of  one  God.  This 
unifies  truth,  science,  righteousness. 

Second.  The  non-use  of  images.  This  fore- 
stalls the  debasement  of  worship,  the  ignobleness 
of  idolatry,  and  the  degradation  of  mind. 

Third.  The  reverential  use  of  the  Divine 
Name.  This  prevents  the  lightness  and  blas- 
phemy which  tend  to  impair  and  destroy  the 
sense  of  the  majesty,  holiness,  glory,  presence, 
and  power  of  the  Almighty. 

Fourth.  A  day  in  perpetual  recurrence,  spe- 
cially devoted  to  the  perpetuation  and  spread  of 
the  knowledge  of  God,  his  works,  will,  and  provi- 
dence, to  be  preceded  by  six  days  of  labor. 

Fifth.  Respect  and  obedience  toward  parents. 
This  is  the  best  safeguard  of  domestic  peace  and 
civil  loyalty  and  good  citizenship. 

Sixth.  Murder  and  all  that  leads  to  murder, 
the  taking  of  the  life  out  of  life,  is  forbidden. 

Seventh.  The  invasion  of   connubial  sanctity 


THE  SABBATH.  67 

and  indulgence  in  all  sexual  impurity  are  for- 
bidden. 

Eighth.  The  prohibition  of  the  unpermitted 
and  uncompensated  appropriation  of  what  is 
another's. 

Ninth.  False  witness  forbidden. 

Tenth.  Covetousness,  "which  is  idolatry,"  is 
interdicted. 

A  close  study  of  the  Decalogue  will  convince 
the  reader  that,  while  every  command  is  in  itself 
indispensable  to  a  high  civilization,  every  one  is 
also  necessary  to  the  full  use  of  every  other. 
But  the  Fourth  is  so  related  to  all  the  others 
that  they  stand  or  fall  with  it.  Without  a 
periodic  day  sacred  to  appropriate  teaching|  the 
knowledge  of  God  would  soon  be  lost,  and  idol- 
atry and  crushing  superstitions  reign.  Thus  with- 
out a  Sabbath  the  three  preceding  precepts  of  the 
First  Table  would  be  unavailing  for  good.  It  is 
equally  clear  that,  as  to  their  import  and  effec- 
tiveness, the  Sabbath  is  an  essential  condition  also 
of  the  fulfillment  of  the  six  precepts  of  the  Sec- 
ond Table,  which  regulate  the  conduct  of  man 
toward  man.  The  knowledge  of  duty  must  pre- 


68  THE  SABBATH. 

cede  its  performance  ?  and  how  shall  they  hear 
without  a  teacher?  And  how  shall  one  teach 
without  a  time  and  opportunity  ? 

The  fourth  commandment,  then,  is  the  nexus 
which  unites  the  three  preceding  precepts,  which 
look  Godward,  and  the  six  following,  which  look 
manward,  into  a  symmetrical  whole,  thus  bring- 
ing God  and  man  into  relation  under  a  covenant 
of  law.  The  loss  of  it  would  be  the  direst  calam- 
ity, and  the  abuse  of  it  is  flagrant  unwisdom  and 
blind  misanthropy.  The  notion  that  it  is  of  the 
nature  of  a  Hebrew  statute  and  has  expired  by 
limitation,  appears  to  me  as  mischievous  as  it  is 
baseless.  Its  repeal  would  be  the  virtual  repeal 
of  the  Decalogue. 

Here,  then,  we  find  the  SABBATH  LAW,  a  law 
as  unchangeable  as  the  nature  of  man  and  the 
beneficence  of  God.  It  is  the  core  of  the  CON- 
STITUTION of  constitutions.  It  is  a  vital  part  of 
the  basis  of  free  government,  the  charter  of 
human  rights,  the  matrix  of  aggressive  and  be- 
neficent civilizations.  The  life  to  which  the 
fourth  commandment  leads  is  the  right  life. 
Any  day  to  which  this  commandment  applies  is 


THE  SABBATH:  69 

a  true  Sabbath  of  the  beast's  rest,  the  toiler's 
respite,  the  rich  man's  recall  from  worldliness, 
the  home's  reunion  and  delights,  the  sanctuary's 
resounding  praise  and  ennobling  worship.  With 
the  Hebrews  it  applied  to  the  day  of  their  escape 
from  Egypt  in  perpetual  septenary  recurrence, 
and  not  less  to  the  tenth  day  of  the  seventh 
month.  Both  these  Sabbaths  were  new  and 
national,  yet  they  rested  under  the  full  force  of 
the  Sabbath  law.  If  at  any  time  and  for  any 
reason  it  has  pleased  God  to  restore  the  pristine 
Sabbath,  or  put  Sabbath  sanctity  upon  another 
day,  that,  too,  is  covered  by  all  the  sacred  sanc- 
tity which  the  law  conveys.  That  if  the  day  is 
changed  the  law  must  be  changed,  is  a  fallacy  so 
obvious  as  scarcely  to  escape  the  imputation  of 
puerility. 


70  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  Y. 
THE  LAW  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

WE  have  the  Sabbath  law.  JsTow  what  is 
the  law  of  the  Sabbath  ?  The  law  exists 
in  form  only  until  we  reach  a  true  interpretation. 
Our  inquiry  is,  therefore,  of  the  essence  of  the 
controversy.  If  the  repeal  of  the  fourth  com- 
mandment would  be,  practically  and  in  effect, 
the  repeal  of  the  Decalogue,  it  is  vain  to  think 
of  maintaining  a  holy  Sabbath  by  inference,  con- 
venience, physical  benefits,  public  decency,  pa- 
tristic example,  or  what  not.  Where  there  is  no 
law  there  is  no  transgression.  License  never 
leads  the  wild  horse  into  harness  nor  the  sinner 
to  righteousness.  Law  must  impel  till  love  con- 
strains. "What,  then,  are  the  contents  of  the 
law  of  the  Sabbath  ? 

First,  it  requires  six  days  of  labor — honest, 
virtuous,  useful  labor.  The  lawgiver  cannot 
demand  or  approve  work  the  legitimate  effect  of 


THE  SABBATH*.  71 

which  is  harmful.  The  man  who  follows  an  evil 
business  counterworks  the  spirit  of  the  whole 
law.  The  idler  breaks  the  Sabbath  law  through 
all  the  work-days  of  the  week,  however  sancti- 
moniously lie  may  treat  the  Sabbath.  Six  days 
of  well-directed  toil  every  week  are  enough  for 
all  the  authentic  needs  of  society  in  the  highest 
advancement. 

After  six  days  of  labor  comes  the  day  of  rest. 
To  the  beast  of  burden  it  is  physical  rest.  To 
the  man  it  is  rest  of  body  and  mind,  spiritual  re- 
freshment, and  opportunity  to  increase  his 
knowledge  of  divine  things.  This  is  a  universal 
law,  because  it  meets  a  universal  need.  "Lex 
stat  dum  ratio  manet."  If  a  universal  law, 
obedience  must  be  practicable  in  every  latitude 
and  longitude.  It  must  also  be  possible  for  plain 
minds  to  understand  it.  Wherever  there  are 
solar  days  to  regulate  industrial  life,  there  the 
law  plainly  requires  that  every  seventh  day  should 
be  set  apart  as  sacred  to  devout  uses.  This  is 
true  in  England,  China,  America.  Yet  the 
devout  in  these  several  countries  do  not  keep, 
and  practically  cannot  keep,  the  identical  twenty- 


72  THE  SABBATH. 

four  hours  which  make  the  same  day  in  exact 
astronomical  series.  To  do  this  is  practically  im- 
possible ;  first,  for  the  reason  that  no  man  knows 
the  starting-point,  and,  second,  the  shape  of  the 
planet  makes  such  a  construction  of  the  law  un- 
reasonable in  the  last  degree.  Saturday-Sabbath 
writers  wrestle  bravely  with  this  insuperable 
obstacle  to  their  exposition,  but  utterly  in  vain. 
The  Outlook,  the  ablest  of  Saturday-Sabbath 
periodicals,  and  J.  N.  Andrews,  author  of  His- 
tory of  the  Sabbath  and  First  of  the  Week — both 
works  as  acute  as  any  on  that  side — pass  it  over 
glibly  with  the  statement  that  the  natural  course 
of  peopling  the  planet  is  with  the  course  of  the 
sun,  from  east  to  west,  and  that  commerce  has 
agreed  upon  a  line  of  longitude  where  the  day 
shall  change ;  and  it  is  a  pity  if  religion  cannot 
do  as  much  as  commerce  !  The  reader  must  not 
take  offense  at  the  flippancy  of  such  an  inconse- 
quent evasion.  The  writers  named,  and  some 
others  of  the  same  school,  are  really  keen,  capa- 
ble men.  They  have  done  the  very  best  that 
could  be  done  without  abandoning  their  theory. 
The  explanation  of  so  utter  a  failure  lies  in  the 


THE  SABBATH.  73 

fact  that  the  theory  is  radically  and  incurably 
wrong. 

Is  it  true  that  the  natural  course  of  peopling 
the  earth  is  from  east  to  west  ?  There  have  been 
strong  tides  of  emigration  and  travel  eastward. 
Cannot  people  going  eastward  keep  the  Sabbath 
as  obediently  as  people  going  westward  ?  Does 
the  Sabbath  law  specify  or  imply  a  necessary 
direction  of  spreading  humanity,  or  certain  lines 
of  longitude,  or  certain  agreements  of  navigators 
in  the  interest  of  commerce  and  the  calendar  ? 
Suppose  that  two  devout  Saturday-Sabbath  men 
should  set  out  from  San  Francisco,  say,  and  travel 
in  opposite  directions  till  they  meet  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  globe.  They  are  a  day  apart. 
How  shall  they  reconcile  their  differences,  both 
having  conscientiously  kept  seventh-day  from 
the  start  ?  They  must  adhere  to  arithmetic  and 
keep  two  seventh-days,  or,  like  men  of  common 
sense,  conclude  that  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  is  to 
be  rationally  interpreted,  and  so  harmonize  their 
count  to  the  shape  and  motions  of  the  earth. 

Again,  a  universal  law  must  be  obeyable  in  all 
latitudes  where  men  live  and  travel.  "What 


74  THE  SABBATH. 

shall  the  inhabitants  of  the  far  north  do  ?  They 
have  a  seventh  solar  day  only  once  in  seven  years. 
Will  one  long  day's  rest  and  worship  in  seven 
years  meet  the  demands  of  the  law  ?  These  peo- 
ple have  customary  and  convenient  divisions  of 
time,  established  by  experience,  measured  by 
sleeping  and  waking,  eating  and  fasting,  working 
and  resting.  Does  not  every  one  unblinded  by 
a  false  theory  see  that  if  the  Esquimaux  or 
Greenlanders  devoutly  consecrate  every  seventh 
of  these  convenient  and  usual  portions  of  time  to 
rest  and  worship  they  obey  the  law  of  the  Sab- 
bath as  strictly  as  our  Saturday-Sabbath  brethren 
imagine  they  are- doing? 

Again.  It  is  a  familiar  history  that  the  first  in- 
habitants of  Pitcairn's  Island,  made  up  of  the 
mutineers  of  the  ship  Bounty  and  the  heathen 
women  they  picked  up  on  their  way,  were  con- 
verted through  the  use  of  a  single  Bible  found 
in  a  seaman's  chest.  They  became  a  God-fearing 
people,  and,  of  course,  kept  the  Sabbath  ;  for  the 
teaching  of  the  word  is  plain.  They  had  reached 
the  island  from  the  east,  and  kept  their  Sabbath 
by  regular  count.  A  British  ship  reached  the 


THE  SABBATH.  75 

island  on  Saturday,  counting  from  the  west,  and 
found  Adams  and  his  people  devoutly  keeping 
the  day  holy  to  the  Lord.  "Which  were  right, 
the  discoverers  or  the  discovered  ?  Suppose  now 
that  a  number  of  the  sailors  of  the  visiting  ship 
had  decided  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  happy 
islanders — would  devout  respect  for  the  law  of 
the  Sabbath  have  required  each  party  strenuously 
to  hold  to  its  day,  and  thus  confuse,  distract,  and 
destroy  the  order  and  quiet  of  ooth  days  ?  Com- 
mon sense,  the  spirit  of  the  law,  and  the  character 
of  the  Lawgiver  cominandingly  suggest  that 
either  party  might  have  yielded  its  day  and 
adopted  the  other's  without  infracting  the  law, 
dishonoring  God,  or  injuring  their  own  souls. 
As  the  great  body  of  the  Christian  world  was 
keeping  the  Sunday-Sabbath  the  islanders  did 
wisely  and  Christianly  to  change  their  day  and 
come  into  harmony  with  general  Christian  usage. 
And  yet  again.  The  early  navigators  used  to 
change  the  day  at  Callao  because  that  was  a  usual 
place  of  meeting.  More  accurately,  and  by  com- 
mon consent,  the  point  of  change  is  now  180° 
east  or  west  of  Greenwich.  Let  us  suppose  two 


76  THE  SABBATH. 

ship-loads  of  Saturday-Sabbath  people  sailing  in 
opposite  directions,  about  to  meet  at  the  180th  de- 
gree of  longitude.  The  weather  is  fine.  The  ships 
are  two  hours  apart.  An.  observation  is  taken  to 
decide  whether  it  is  Saturday  or  Sunday  on  board 
the  ship  east  of  the  line,  and  whether  it  is  Friday 
or  Saturday  west  of  the  line.  They  have  counted 
the  days,  and  by  count  it  is  Saturday  on  one  and 
Friday  on  the  other.  If  clouds  and  storm  pre- 
vail it  is  impossible  to  settle  the  grave  question 
for  two  days.  It  clears  up,  and  the  observation 
shows  that  the  ship  from  the  east  crossed  the 
line  twenty -four  hours  ago,  and  the  people  on 
board  have  been  keeping  Sunday,  that  "  wicked 
heathen  day,"  while  the  other  ship  crossed  the 
line  on  Friday  and  has  made  secular  use  of 
sacred  time !  "  Commerce  has  agreed  upon  a 
line  where  the  day  shall  change ;  and  it  is  a  pity 
if  religion  cannot  do  as  much  as  commerce ! " 
But  no  sooner  does  "  religion  do  as  much  as 
commerce "  does  in  this  sensible  way  than  THE 
seventh-day  theory,  by  logical  necessity,  goes  by 
the  board.  All  that  is  left  is  a  relative,  not  an 
absolute  seventh-day.  And  the  inference  is  irre- 


THE  SABBATH.  77 

sistible,  either  that  God  has  set  geography  and 
necessity  at  war  with  the  law  of  the  Sabbath  or 
the  law  of  the  Sabbath  requires  a  relative  seventh- 
day — that  is,  every  seventh  day  in  every  place  ; 
which  Sunday-Sabbath  people  may  and  do  keep 
as  truly  as  their  brethren  who  accuse  them  of 
wearing  the  "  mark  of  the  beast." 

Superfluous  as  it  will  appear  to  intelligent 
readers,  let  us  carry  the  supposition  a  stage  or 
two  farther.  Suppose  that  the  two  ships'  com- 
panies, through  death  oi\  incompetence  of  officers, 
loss  or  defect  of  instruments,  or  any  other  cause, 
should  miss  the  line  and  pass  entirely  around  to 
the  place  of  starting.  To  their  confusion  and 
horror  they  find  themselves  two  days  apart. 
Both  have  counted  with  conscientious  accuracy, 
and  both,  as  they  fondly  believe,  have  kept  THE 
seventh  .day,  yet  they  have  been  driven  to  prof- 
anation by  cogency  of  geography. 

Take  one  more  supposition.  Let  the  ship 
sailing  eastward  bear  Saturday-Sabbath  and  that 
sailing  westward  Sunday-Sabbath  passengers. 
The  one  will  have  gained  and  the  other  lost,  say, 
twelve  hours.  It  may  easily  happen,  with  even 


78  THE  SABBATH. 

less  days  of  cloud  and  storm  than  have  often 
prevailed,  that  both  cross  the  line  together,  both 
keeping  the  same  day,  the  one  sure  it  is  Satur- 
day and  the  other  equally  sure  that  it  is  Sunday. 
Is  astronomy  irreconcilable  with  the  fourth  com- 
mandment ? 

It  is  idle  to  urge  that  the  same  embarrass- 
ments beset  the  Sunday-Sabbath  scheme.  The 
basal  theory  is  wholly  different.  With  intelli- 
gent Christians  of  the  Sunday-Sabbath  school  it 
is  not  the  first  or  seventh  day  in  an  absolute 
identity.  It  is  every  first  day,  if  you  please,  in 
relation  to  the  Hebrew  week,  every  seventh  day 
in  relation  to  six  preceding  days  of  labor,  and 
every  seventh  day  counting  from  itself. 

It  may  be  argued  with  superficial  plausibility 
that,  granting  the  interpretation  contended  for, 
Saturday-Sabbath  keepers  are  still  right,  inas- 
much as  they  keep  every  seventh  day  in  every 
part  of  the  world. 

The  answer  is  obvious : 

1.  By  the  terms  of  the  defense  they  keep 
every  seventh  day  no  more  than  Sunday-Sab- 
bath people. 


THE  SABBATH.  79 

2.  They  keep,  relatively,  a  Hebrew  Sabbath 
with  only  one  of  the  four  reasons  which  under- 
lay that  Sabbath. 

3.  They  are  a  fraction  less  than  seven  tenths 
of  one  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  this  coun- 
try, and  if  they  yield  THE  seventh-day  idea  it  is 
obviously  wrong  that  they  should  remain  an  ele- 
ment of  disharmony  in  Christian  communities, 
thus  weakening  the    force   of   Sabbath-keeping 
sentiment,  and,  as  far  as  their  influence  extends, 
disturbing  the  industrial  order  of  week-days  and 
impairing  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  their  neigh- 
bors who  keep  the  Lord's  day  holy. 

4.  As  soon  as  they  place  their  justification  on 
this  ground  their  absurd  and  conceited  denunci- 
ation  of    the   vast   majority   who   observe    the 
Sunday-Sabbath  becomes  consciously  false  and 
wicked. 

5.  The  form  and  motions  of  the  earth  compel 
an  accommodation  of  time.     Is  it  not  as  much 
in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  God  and 
Father  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh  to  believe  that  the 
unity  and  harmony  of  Christian  believers  should 
be  deemed  sufficient  to  justify  and  demand  an 


80  THE  SABBATH. 

accommodation  of  usage  with  respect  to  the  day 
to  be  held  sacred,  seeing  that  neither  is,  nor  can 
be,  THE  seventh  day  in  every  longitude,  and  one 
as  much  as  the  other  is  the  seventh  day  in  sep- 
tenary order. 

6.  And  if  agreement  is  to  be  sought,  which 
ought  to  yield  :  the  seven  tenths  of  one  per  cent, 
or  the  ninety-nine  and  three  tenths  per  cent? 
Let  common  sense,  religion,  Christian  con- 
venience, the  long-established  date  periods  of 
Christian  society,  history,  and  nations,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  Scriptures  answer.  If  every  small 
fraction  may  set  apart  a  separate  day,  all  in- 
dustry, all  order  of  commerce,  courts,  and  re- 
ligious social  life  are  at  an  end. 

The  law  of  the  Sabbath,  then,  requires  that 
every  seventh  usual  and  useful  division  of  time 
be  set  apart  as  a  Sabbath  holy  unto  the  Lord.  In 
it  we  are  not  to  do  our  own  work,  nor  seek  our 
own  pleasure,  unless  our  pleasure  is  to  worship 
and  obey  the  Lord  of  the  Sabbath.  ISTo  man 
knows  or  can  know  that  lie  has  the  original 
starting-point  and  THE  identical  seventh  day. 
Few  will  contend  that  the  days  of  creation  were 


THE  SABBATH.  81 

solar  days.  Paradise  may  have  been  at  the 
north  pole,  as  ingeniously  maintained  by  Dr. 
Warren.  It  is  certain  that,  in  the  strict  astro- 
nomical sense,  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  race  can 
have  the  day.  All  others  must  have  it  in  a  rel- 
ative and  movable  sense.  God's  law  is  addressed 
to  human  intelligence  and  is  adjusted  to  the 
necessities  and  innocent  conveniences  of  human 
life.  This  is  an  abiding,  universal,  irrepealable 
law.  The  history  of  the  Hebrews  makes  plain 
a  distinction  between  statutory  and  constitu- 
tional laws.  There  were  annual  Sabbaths  con- 
nected with  their  great  feasts.  Two  of  these 
annual  feasts  could  not  be  celebrated  until  after 
they  reached  Canaan.  Even  the  Sabbath  of  the 
great  day  of  atonement  was  temporary  as  be- 
longing to  a  peculiar  people  and  a  preparatory 
dispensation.  Yet  these  "  Sabbaths  of  the  land," 
in  their  times,  rested  under  all  the  binding  force 
of  the  fourth  commandment.  The  law  of  the 
Sabbath  would  abide  when  all  exceptional  Sab- 
baths should  pass  away. 

Is  not  the  Decalogue  the  law  alluded  to  in 
Matt,  xxii,  36-40 ;  Eom.  iii,  31 ;  vii,  12  ;  viii,  4 ; 


82  THE  SABBATH. 

xiii,  10  ?  Are  not  these  the  commandments  in 
view  in  Matt,  v,  19,  20 ;  xix,  16-22  ;  xxii,  36-40  ; 
Mark  xii,  28-34  ?  St.  James  puts  the  essential 
unity  of  the  law  into  a  sentence  :  "  Whosoever 
shall  keep  the  whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one 
[commandment]  he  is  guilty  of  all."  The 
essence  of  the  law  is  the  sovereign  will,  which, 
like  a  golden  cord,  runs  through  all  the  com- 
mandments. To  break  any  one  of  them  we 
must  break  the  cord. 

-Certain  statutory  provisions  of  the  Hebrew 
code  stand  in  such  relation  to  the  terms  of  the 
law  as  to  confuse  the  thought  of  the  superficial 
reader.  As  samples  see  Exod.  xxi,  15-17 :  "  He 
that  smiteth  father  or  mother  shall  surely  be 
put  to  death."  The  law  is,  "  Honor  thy  father 
and  thy  mother,  that  it  may  be  well  with  thee, 
and  thy  days  may  be  long  upon  the  land."  By 
blending  the  two  both  are  misinterpreted. 
Again :  A  man  was  found  picking  up  sticks  on 
the  Sabbath  and  was  adjudged  to  death  under 
the  statute.  The  law  is,  "  Eemember  the  Sab- 
bath day  to  keep  it  holy — make  it  a  rest  to  beast 
and  servant  and  stranger."  By  confounding  the 


THE  SABBATH.  83 

two  we  miss  the  purpose  of  both  and  make  "  a 
cruel  Jewish  Sabbath "  out  of  the  beneficent 
fourth  commandment. 

A  little  intelligent  reading  will  make  it  clear 
to  the  humblest  capacity  that  these  statutory  ex- 
pedients, resorted  to  in  an  exigence  and  confined 
to  a  peculiar  people  in  a  peculiar  condition,  are 
no  part  of  the  universal  law. 


84  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  YL 

A  CHANGE  OF  THE  SABBATH  FORESHADOWED 
AND  FORETOLD. 

WE  need  only  to  glance  at  Israelitish  history 
to  discover  liow  inseparately  prosperity 
and  calamity  were  connected  respectively  with 
the  keeping  or  desecration  of  the  Sabbath.  As 
long  as  they  honored  the  Sabbath  God  honored 
them.  As  often  as  they  polluted  it  they  were 
rebuked,  scattered,  and  peeled.  It  is  a  strong 
proof  of  their  stiff-neckedness  that  never  until 
after  the  great  captivity  did  they  show  a  stead- 
fast loyalty  to  the  holy  day.  Even  then — as  the 
spendthrift  in  youth  becomes  a  miser  in  age — 
these  strange  people  loaded  down  writh  super- 
stitions and  unauthorized  exactions  the  day 
which  they  had  so  often  defiled  with  their  idol- 
atries. 

Along  the  ages  of  their  unique  history  we  catch 
glimpses  of  a  coming  supersession  of  their  feasts, 


THE  SABBATH.  85 

sacrifices,  and  set  days.  They  are  manifestly 
designed  as  vehicles  to  carry  forward  a  divine 
purpose  for  a  limited  time.  As  Canaan  was  but 
a  shadow  of  "  the  better  country,  even  the  heav- 
enly ;  "  so  the  whole  ceremonial  and  representa- 
tive economy  of  Israelitish  life  was  made  up  of 
types  and  shadows  of  better  things  to  come. 

One  supreme  promise  runs  through  history, 
discipline,  miracle,  prophecy,  and  sacrifices.  All 
lights  focalize  in  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 
And  in  connection  with  the  central  beam  of  this 
glorious  prospect  are  many  side-lights.  Among 
them  are  anticipatory  glimpses  of  a  coming  dis- 
pensation in  which  the  work  of  redemption 
should  be  commemorated  in  surpassing  prefer- 
ence to  the  work  of  creation,  and  the  glory  of 
the  "ministration  of  death"  that  shone  on  the 
face  of  Moses  should  pale  in  the  light  of  "  the 
glory  that  excelleth."  2  Cor.  iii,  7-10.  As  a 
sample  the  learned  agree  that  Isaiah  Ixv,  17,  18, 
(cf.  Isa.  li,  16;  Ixvi,  22;  Ezek.  xliii,  27,)  re- 
lates to  the  New  Testament  Church  in  its  mili- 
tant state,  in  which  the  high  figure  of  "new 
heavens  and  new  earth"  should  be  exempli- 


86  THE  SABBATH. 

fled  and  Jerusalem  be  created  "  a  rejoicing  and 
her  people  a  joy."  This  new  dispensation  was 
so  far  to  outshine  the  former  that  that  should 
not  "  come  into  mind." 

Of  the  scripture  just  instanced  Dr.  Dwight 
says :  "  This  passage  appears  to  me  to  place  the 
fact  in  the  clearest  light  that  a  particular,  superior, 
and  extraordinary  commemoration  of  the  work 
of  redemption,  by  the  Christian  Church  in  all  its 
various  ages,  was  a  part  of  the  good  pleasure  of 
God,  and  was  designed  by  him  to  be  accom- 
plished in  the  course  of  his  providence.  But 
there  neither  is  nor  ever  was  any  public,  solemn 
commemoration  of  this  work  by  the  Christian 
Church,  except  that  which  is  holden  on  the  first 
day  of  the  week,  or  the  day  in  which  Christ 
completed  his  great  work  by  his  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  This  prophecy  has,  therefore, 
been  unfulfilled,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  unless  it  has 
been  fulfilled  in- this  very  manner.  But  if  it  has 
been  fulfilled  in  this  manner,  then  the  manner 
of  fulfilling  it  has  been  agreeable  to  the  true  in- 
tention of  the  prophecy  and  to  the  good  pleas- 
ure of  God  expressed  in  it,  and  is,  therefore,  that 


THE  SABBATH.  87 

very  part  of  his  providence  which  is  here  un- 
folded to  mankind." 

A  clearer  light  is  thrown  into  the  forward  dis- 
tance by  Psa.  cxviii,  22,  23,  24 :  "  The  stone 
which  the  builders  rejected  is  become  the  head 
of  the  corner.  This  is  the  Lord's  doing ;  it  is 
marvelous  in  our  eyes.  This  is  THE  DAY  WHICH 
THE  LORD  HATH  MADE;  we  will  rejoice  and  be 
glad  in  it."  Six  times  in  the  New  Testament 
this  scripture  is  applied  to  our  Lord.  See  Matt 
xxi,  42 ;  Mark  xii,  10 ;  Luke  xx,  17 ;  Acts  iv,  11 ; 
Eph.  ii,  20 ;  1  Pet.  ii,  4,  7. 

Of  this  Psalm  Dr.  Hibbard  says  :  "  It  is  pro- 
phetic of  Messiah  and  was  the  last  of  the  Psalms 
composing  the  great  hallel  or  chant  whicfi  the 
Jews  in  latter  days  sung  at  the  passover." 

Bishop  Horn  calls  it  "  a  triumphal  hymn,  sung 
by  King  Messiah  at  the  head  of  the  Israel  of  God 
on  occasion  of  his  resurrection  from  the  dead." 

Matthew  Henry,  on  v.  24,  says :  "  It  [the  day] 
may  be  fitly  understood  of  the  Christian  Sabbath, 
which  we  sanctify  in  remembrance  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  when  the  rejected  stone  began  to  be 
exalted.'"  The  learned  divine  then  proceeds  at 


88  THE  SABBATH. 

length  to  discourse  with  rare  and  beautiful  force  on 
"  the  day,"  its  blessedness,  duties,  and  privileges. 

Robert  Hall  has  a  sermon  of  great  power  on 
"The  Lord's  day  commemorative  of  Christ's 
resurrection,"  in  which  he  says  of  the  Psalm 
under  view :  "  No  doubt  can  be  entertained  of 
its  referring,  in  its  fullest  and  sublimest  sense, 
to  the  person  and  kingdom  of  the  Redeemer.  .  .  . 
On  this  day  [the  Christian  Sabbath]  the  purchase 
of  our  redemption  was  completed.  On  this  day 
the  character  of  Christ  was  illustriously  vindi- 
cated and  his  pretensions  fully  asserted  and  sus- 
tained. This  day  afforded  to  Christ  a  signal  tri- 
umph over  his  enemies.  On  this  day  our  Lord 
gained  an  everlasting  victory  over  the  last  enemy 
and  triumphed  over  death  hi  that  nature  which 
had  always  been  subject  to  his  dominion  before. 
On  this  day  we  are  called  to  rejoice  in  that  sure 
and  certain  prospect  which  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  affords  to  all  true  believers  of  ascending 
with  him  to  heaven  and  of  their  partaking  with 
him  of  his  glory." 

Dr.  Isaac  Barrow  quotes  this  Psalm  as  appli- 
cable to  Christ. 


THE  SABBATH.  89 

Saurin  uses  v.  24  as  a  text  for  a  sermon  on  the 
resurrection,  in  course  of  which  he  remarks  that 
"  the  ancient  Jews  understood  the  Psalm  of  him, 
and,  therefore,  made  use.  of  it,  formerly,  among 
their  prayers  for  his  advent." 

Meyer,  Bengel,  Whedon,  and  numberless 
others  recognize  the  authenticity  of  the  inter- 
pretation. Beyond  question  it  is  sustained  by  the 
consensus  of  Christian  scholarship. 

Such  a  magnification  of  the  day  of  triumph 
over  death  and  demonstration  of  immortality  ac- 
cords with  the  tone  and  trend  of  all  New  Testa- 
ment references  to  the  resurrection.  Jesus  was 
"  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power,  ac- 
cording to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  by  the  resurrec- 
tion of  [from]  the  dead."  Rom.  i,  4.  (Of.  John 
xi,  25  ;  Acts  i,  22  ;  ii,  31 ;  iv,  2,  23  ;  xvii,  18, 
32 ;  xxiii,  6 ;  1  Cor.  xv,  13.)  The  fact  of  our 
Lord's  resurrection  is  made  illustrious  above  all 
other  facts  and  the  day  above  all  other  days.  It 
is  a  day  worthy  of  ceaseless  commemoration ; 
which  commemoration  it  has  had  in  the  joyful 
and  adoring  observation  and  worship  of  the 
Christian  Sabbath,  and  in  no  other  way.  The 


90  THE  SABBATH. 

Jews  do  not  celebrate  it.  The  Jewish  Sabbath 
cannot  commemorate  it.  The  Saturday-Sabbath 
people — even  though  they  claim  to  have  no  su- 
persensuous  nature,  no  souls  or  spirits,  and  to 
depend  solely  on  the  resurrection  of  the  body  for 
the  hope  of  future  conscious  being — do  not  com- 
memorate it.  The  great  pivotal  fact  of  the 
scheme  of  redemption  is  suffered  to  remain  among 
unmonumented,  uncelebrated  events,  except  so 
far  as  the  perpetual  recurrence  of  the  Christian 
Sabbath  brings  it  to  mind. 

"Would  any  important  purpose  be  served  by 
substituting  the  Christian  for  the  Hebrew  Sab- 
bath? Bearing  in  mind  the  distinction  clearly 
made  between  the  Sabbath  and  the  day  on  which 
it  was  celebrated  ;  are  there  in  view  any  cogent 
reasons  to  justify  and  demand  the  change  ? 
•  Among  the  reasons  which  commend  themselves 
to  our  intelligence  are  the  following : 

1.  The  resurrection  is  constantly  set  forth  as 
the  supreme  fact  and  completion  of  our  Lord's 
provisional  redeeming  work.  We  are  begotten 
again  to  a  lively  hope  by  it. — 1  Pet.  i,  3.  Its 
constant  commemoration  is  essential  to  the  con- 


THE  SABBATH.  91 

tinned  faith  and  holy  living  of  the  Church. — 1 
Cor.  xv,  13-19.  Bnt  in  no  other  way  has  it  been, 
or  will  it  be,  fittingly  and  continuously  celebrated 
than  by  worship  and  praise  on  resurrection  day. 

2.  The  apostles  and  early  Christians  could  not 
worship  with  the  Jews  on  Sabbath  without  ap- 
pearing to  countenance  rites,  ceremonies,  sacri- 
fices, and  teachings  which  denied  Christ  as  the 
crucified  and  risen  Saviour,  who  "  by  his  own 
blood  entered  once  into  the  holy  place,  having 
obtained  eternal  redemption  for  us." 

3.  There  was  a  tendency  to  commit  the  sin  of 
Judaizing,  against  which  the  disciples  were  zeal- 
ously warned.     The  Jewish  Sabbath  was  so  as- 
sociated with  the  rites  of  the  ceremonial  law — a 
law  fulfilled  and  annulled  by  Christ's  death — as 
greatly  to  increase  the  menacing  peril  of  the  in- 
fant Church.     Any  countenance  given  to  Juda- 
ism, after  the  resurrection,  was  by  so  much  a 
betrayal  of  the  Lord. 

4.  The    visible    recognition    of    the    divine 
sovereignty  of  the  risen  Christ  as  Lord  of  the 
Sabbath  day,  and,  therefore,  of  all  days  and  all 
men,  could  not  otherwise  be  so  well  accomplished 


92  THE  SABBATH. 

as  by  the  weekly  public  worship  offered  him  on 
the  day  of  his  triumph  over  death  and  hades. 

5.  It  would  be  a  significant  and  strong  wall  of 
separation  between  the  Church  of  the  risen 
Christ  and  the  exhausted  and  displaced  "  cov- 
enant of  works,"  to  which  its  members  were  never 
to  return. 

These  reasons  have  great  weight,  and  were  so 
regarded  from  the  earliest  times,  in  proof  of 
which  I  need  not  pause  here  to  cite  authorities. 
Add  to  these  reasons  and  to  the  f orelookings  of 
prophets  and  Psalmist  the  following  list  of 
"teaching  facts,"  which;  I  submit,  can  be  ac- 
counted for  on  no  other  theory  than  that  the 
keeping  of  resurrection-day  is  agreeable  to  the 
will  of  Him  who  holdeth  the  issues  of  life  in  his 
hand: 

1.  It  is  certain  that  our  Lord,  who  had  power 
to  lay  down  his  life  and  to  take  it  again,  chose  to 
lie  in  the  tomb  throughout  the  Jewish  Sabbath, 
leaving  his  enemies  loud  in  their  triumph  and 
his  disciples  dumb  in  their  despair. 

2.  It  is  certain  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead 
on  the  morning  after  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  thus 


THE  SABBATH.  93 

completing  the  provisional  work  of  redemption, 
filling  his  murderers  with  consternation,  certify- 
ing his  Godhead,  demonstrating  the  divinity  of 
his  mission,  inspiring  his  disciples  with  uncon- 
querable courage,  opening  the  gates  of  hades, 
giving  the  world  a  living  hope,  and  making  the 
resurrection  and  the  life  visible  to  heaven,  earth, 
and  hell. 

3.  It  is  certain  that  after  his  resurrection  Jesus 
met  with  his  disciples  on  two  successive  Sunday- 
Sabbaths,  and  probably  on  at  least  three  others. 

4.  It  is  certain  that  the  disciples  began  imme- 
diately to  meet  on  the  Sunday-Sabbath,  to  com- 
memorate his  death  and  resurrection. 

5.  It  is  certain  that  the  Scriptures  give  no 
intimation  of  our  Lord's  meeting  with  his  disci- 
ples, or  with  others,  on  the  Jewish  Sabbath  after 
his  resurrection,  although  it  had  always  been  his 
practice  to  attend  the  synagogue  on  that  day.  Thus 
he  put  special  honor  upon  First-day — an  honor 
which  his  followers  could  hardly  have  interpreted 
otherwise  than  they  appear  to  have  done,  as  mark- 
ing it  as  the  Sabbath  of  the  new  dispensation. 

6.  It  is  certain  that  on  First-day  the  dispensa- 


94  THE  SABBATH. 

tion  of  the  spirit  was  fully  ushered  in  at  pente- 
cost.  Pentecost  always  fell  on  the  morrow  after 
the  seventh  Sabbath,  counting  from  the  morrow 
after  the  Sabbath  of  the  passover.  Lev.  xxiii, 
15,  16 :  "  And  ye  shall  count  unto  you  from 
the  morrow  after  the  Sabbath,  from  the  day  that 
ye  brought  the  sheaf  of  the  wave-offering ;  seven 
Sabbaths  shall  be  complete :  even  unto  the  mor- 
row after  the  seventh  Sabbath  shall  ye  number 
fifty  days ;  and  ye  shall  offer  a  new  meat-offering 
unto  the  LORD."  It  must  of  necessity  always 
have  fallen  on  Sunday-Sabbath,  as  any  one  will 
see  by  counting. 

7.  It  is  certain  that  the  disciples  at  Troas  were 
accustomed  to  assemble  to  break  bread  on  the 
Sunday-Sabbath. — Acts  xx,  7. 

8.  It  is  certain  that  the  Corinthian  Christians 
were  to  have  in  readiness  their  gifts  for  the  poor 
on  First-day. — 1  Cor.  xvi,  2. 

9.  It  is  certain  that  St.  John,  "  in  the  spirit," 
under  divine  inspiration,  pronounced  First-day 
the  Lord's-day.    (I  have  studied  with  amazement 
the  futile  attempt  of  Andrews  and  his  imitators 
to  read  a  different  meaning  into  the  text.) 


THE  SABBATH.  95 

10.  It  is  certain  that  a  very  large  and  enlight- 
ened portion  of  the  Christian  world  accept  and 
reverence  Sunday  as  the  true  Sabbath — a  body 
which  includes  a  vast   preponderance  of    the 
learning  and  devotion  of   the  Church  of   the 
living  God. 

11.  It  is  certain  that,  through  the  religious  use 
of  the  Sunday-Sabbath,  the  greatest  social,  civil, 
domestic,  and  spiritual  blessings  have  come  to  our 
race.     From  which  fact  it  is  inevitable  to  infer 
that  the  First-day,  relatively  to  the  Jewish  week, 
is  the  true  Sabbath,  or  God  has  granted  measure- 
less blessings  upon  an  almost  measureless  viola- 
tion of  the  Sabbath  law  and  profanation  of  the 
Sabbath  day.   He  has  permitted  a  false  day  to  be 
the  spring  of  moral  health  and  the  center  of 
moral  and  redemptive  influences. 

12.  It  is  certain  that  with  the  Sunday-Sabbath 
existing  Christianizing  agencies,  to  a  well-nigh 
exclusive  extent,  stand  or  fall. 

To  minds  capable  of  weighing  them  these 
tremendous  facts  carry  with  them  a  resistless 
conclusion.  And,  in  connection  with  them,  we 
shall  not  fail  to  remind  ourselves  that,  in  the 


96  THE  SABBATH. 

pre-advent  history  of  Israel,  great  distinction 
was  put  upon  the  day  following  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath. On  that  day  the  firstlings  of  the  flocks 
and  herds  and  the  first-fruits  of  the  fields  were 
offered.  Aaron  and  his  sons  were  consecrated, 
and  the  temple  was  dedicated  on  that  day.  It 
was  on  Sunday  that  manna  first  fell,  and  on 
Sunday  it  ceased  to  fall,  and  the  people  ate  of 
the  old  corn  of  the  land  of  promise  on  the 
plain  of  Jericho. — Josh,  v,  10,  11. 

On  Sunday  began  the  count  from  passover 
to  pentecost ;  and  on  Sunday  pentecost  always 
fell.  As  the  primeval  Sabbath  was  the  first  day 
of  human  history,  so  pentecost  was  the  birthday 
of  the  Church  of  the  risen  Christ  and  the  first 
day  of  man's  history  in  the  fully  habilitated 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

Before  entering  upon  the  next  chapter  of  the 
argument  let  us  briefly  recapitulate.  We  have 
seen : 

That  the  days  of  creation  were  not,  in  any 
degree  of  probability,  solar  days. 

That  a  Sabbath  made  for  man  could  not  be 
the  same  as  THE  Sabbath,  in  the  sense  of  an 


THE  SABBATH.  97 

identical  twenty-four  hours  in  an  exact  astronom- 
ical series  from  the  time  and  place  of  its  original 
institution. 

That  the  Sabbath  was  instituted,  like  marriage, 
in  the  time  of  man's  innocency,  and  was  one  of 
the  undergirders  laid  into  the  foundation  of  all 
orderly  human  life. 

That  the  arbitrary  septennial  division  of  time 
existed  from  the  earliest  ages  and  among  all 
Eastern  nations. 

That  such  a  usage — having  nothing  in  nature 
to  suggest  it — is  rationally  accounted  for  on  the 
supposition  that  it  descended  from  an  authorita- 
tive and  well-known  beginning. 

That  the  week  was  crowned  with  a  sacred  day. 

That,  in  strong  probability,  the  Sabean  idol- 
atry— the  adoration  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
among  which  the  sun  was  supreme — was  the 
first  corruption  of  primeval  worship. 

That  the  devotees  of  this  idolatry  were  sun- 
worshipers,  giving  only  an  inferior  reverence  to 
the  planets. 

That  the  Sun's-day  is  most  reasonably  assumed 
to  be  the  perverted  primeval  Sabbath,  as  the  sun 


98  THE  SABBATH. 

took  the  place  of  the  Creator,  Sustainer,  and 
Fructifier. 

That  this  form  of  false  worship  was  prevalent 
before  Job  and  Abraham. 

That  Egyptians  were  sun-worshipers  centuries 
before  the  Hebrews  migrated  into  Mizraim. 

That  during  the  entire  period  of  the  Hebrew 
residence  in  the  land  of :  the  Nile  the  chief 
divinity  of  the  Egyptians  was  the  sun,  imaged 
by  the  golden  bull,  Apis,  symbol  of  Osiris. 

That  from  the  time  of  Joseph  to  the  exode  no 
hint  appears  of  a  contrariety  of  custom  between 
Egyptians  and  Hebrews  with  respect  to  the  chief 
day  of  worship. 

That  the  probability,  arising  from  their  situa- 
tion, that  the  Hebrew  bondmen  were  sun-wor- 
,  snipers  at  the  time  of  the  exodus,  is  raised  to  a 
certainty  by  their  conduct  at  Horeb  ;  which  con- 
duct is  interpreted  and  explained  by  the  explicit 
words  of  Scripture,  as  seen  in  Josh,  xxiv,  14; 
Psa.  cvi,  19-22  ;  Ezek.  xx,  5-9  ;  xxiii,  3  ;  Acts 
vii,  41,  42. 

That,  to  separate  them  from  the  prevalent 
idolatry — to  which  for  many  generations  their 


THE  SABBATH.  99 

descendants  were  inclined  to  return — they  were 
given  a  new  Sabbath — the  day  of  their  toilsome 
march  from  Rameses  to  Succoth — to  commemo- 
rate their  deliverance,  their  new  covenant,  and 
their  settiiig-apart  from  all  other  peoples. 

That  they  had  a  Sabbath  out  of  the  septenary 
order. 

That  Shabbath  is  the  sacred  proper  name  of  a 
movable  festival,  of  which  name  neither  rest, 
nor  seventh,  nor  week,  nor  all  of  them  together, 
can  be  accepted  as  an  adequate  rendering. 

That  Shabbath  occurs  one  hundred  and  three 
times  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  in  every 
case,  except  the  nine  in  which  it  is  used  to  mark 
the  rest  of  the  land  and  years,  it  designates  a  day 
set  apart  for  sacred  uses. 

That  our  Lord  chose  to  sleep  in  the  tomb  dur- 
ing the  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  to  glorify  the  mor- 
row after  that  Sabbath  by  his  reviviscence. 

That  the  "  Day  "  was  foretold  by  prophets  and 
Psalmist. 

That  on  the  day  of  his  resurrection,  and  on 
the  next  First-day,  he  met  his  disciples  in  solemn 
conference. 


100  THE  SABBATH. 

That  the  disciples  began  immediately  to  meet 
on  that  day  to  celebrate  his  death  and  rejoice  in 
his  resurrection. 

That  our  Lord  does  not  appear  to  have  met 
with  his  "brethren"  on  the  Jewish  Sabbath 
after  his  resurrection. 

That  the  dispensation  of  the  Spirit  w^as  ushered 
in  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ  set  up  on  the 
Lord's  day. 

Confidence  may  find  sure  footing  on  such  a 
basis  of  facts.  It  must  be  an  unhappily  biased 
mind  which  fails  to  draw  from  such  premises  the 
commanding  conclusion  that  the  day  of  Christ's 
resurrection  is  the  appointed  and  approved  Sab- 
bath of  the  only  wise  God,  our  Saviour,  who  is 
over  all  blessed  forever. 

But  is  there  no  explicit  word  in  support  of  a 
doctrine  so  vital  and  a  day  so  heralded,  so  com- 
memorated, and  so  favored  of  the  God  of  provi- 
dence and  grace  ? 


THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER   YIL 

THE  LORD  OF  THE  SABBATH  MADE  THE  FORE- 
SHADOWED CHANGE,  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 
CERTIFIES  IT. 

A  LKEADY  we  have  seen  foretokenings  of  a 
£\  change.  Now  we  come  to  the  "words 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth."  The  first 
record  to  examine  is  Matt,  xxviii,  1.  This  Gos- 
pel was  doubtless  written  in  Hebrew  (Aramean), 
but  it  must  have  been  early  translated  into 
Greek ;  and  since  its  record  concerning  the  great 
question  now  in  hand  agrees  with  that  of  the 
other  evangelists,  we  will  begin  with  the  sen- 
tence already  indicated.  It  reads  thus :  Oifje  di^ 
oaf3j3arG)vy  TTJ  emfyuGKovori  ei$  \IHLV  oa/3f3ara)v^  qWe 
Mapia  37  MaydaA?/^,  etc. —  Opse  d\  Sdbbaton,  te 
epiplioskousi  eis  mian  Seibbaton,  elthe  Maria  e 
Magdalene,  etc. — "  At  the  end  of  the  Sabbaths, 
as  it  began  to  dawn  toward  the  first  of  the  Sab- 
baths, came  Mary  the  Magdalene,"  etc.  The  Ac- 


J.OJ2V  ';  •  (  ;   '  |  ';  ( ,  ';  ,  TflE:  SABBATH. 

cepted  Version  reads  it:  "In  the  end  of  the 
Sabbath,  as  it  began  to  dawn  toward  the  first 
day  of  the  week,"  etc.  It  appears  presumptuous 
to  question  a  reading  so  long  and  so  generally 
acquiesced  in.  But  is  this  a  true  translation  ?  Is 
it,  in  truth,  a  translation  at  all?  Suppose  a 
Greek  scholar,  who  knew  nothing  of  "Hebraisms," 
were  asked  to  read  it  into  English,  what  would 
he  make  it  ?  "  Day  "  and  "  week  "  are  both  sup- 
plied, the  latter,  I  must  think,  gratuitously  ;  for 
surely  the  aforesaid  scholar  would  not  find  it  in 
the  text,  nor  implied  by  the  text.  That  given 
above  would  appear  to  be  a'  literal  rendering. 

The  principal  reason  assigned  for  the  present 
reading  is  that  it  is  a  Hebraism.  May  I  be  per- 
mitted, with  great  deference,  to  express  a  clear 
conviction  that  the  Hebrew  of  the  Scriptures  has 
no  such  idiom.  It  is  true  that  from  Sabbath  to 
Sabbath  is  a  week,  and  equally  true  that  from 
any  other  day  to  the  same  day  again  is  a  week. 
But  Shabbath  never  in  itself  means  week.  I  am 
strongly  confirmed  in  the  view  to  which  the 
Hebrew  Bible  had  led  me  by  correspondence 
which  I  have  had  with  eminent  scholars  who 


THE  SABBATH.  103 

have  heretofore  supported  the  other  theory.  The 
Hebrew  has  a  specific  term — Shabua — for  week. 
See  Gen.  xxix,  27,  28 ;  Exod.  xxxiv,  22 ;  Lev. 
xii,  5 ;  Num.  xxviii,  26 ;  Deut.  xvi,  9,  10,  16 ; 
2  Chron,  viii,  13 ;  Jer.  v,  24 ;  Dan.  ix,  24-27 ; 
x,  2,  3.  Shabbath,  on  the  other  hand,  occurs  one 
hundred  and  three  times,  and  never  once,  prop- 
erly speaking,  is  the  name  for  week. 

"Contemporary  usage"  is  pleaded  as  a  last 
defense.  It  is  true  that  the  rabbins  contemporary 
with  the  New  Testament  writers  used  the  form 
rnBqjinK,  ro^qj^,  rae^pe^i  EchadBashabbath — 
"  One  from  the  Sabbath."  Shme,  B  ashabbath— 
"  Two  from  the  Sabbath."  Sheleshe  Bashabbath 
— "  Three  from  the  Sabbath,"  etc.  But  contem- 
porary usage  cannot  avail,  for  these  cogent  rea- 
sons: 

First.  The  evangelists  are  writing  in  Greek, 
which  has  no  such  form. 

Second.  They  are  writing  under  inspiration  for 
all  peoples  and  times. 

Third.  Both  Hebrew  (ancient)  and  Greek 
had  familiar  forms  for  expressing  the  day  fol- 
lowing the  Sabbath — thus,  Mimmachorath  Ha- 


104  THE  SABBATH. 

shdblatfi  in  Hebrew,  and  tes  epaurion  ton  Sdb- 
latdn  in  the  Greek— "The  morrow  after  the 
Sabbaths." 

Fourth..  The  Septuagint  i&  "  the  mold  in  which 
the  thoughts,  and  expressions  of  the  apostles  and 
evangelists  are  cast/'  as  it  is  the  principal  source 
whence  they  drew  their  quotations.  But  the 
Septuagint  is  a  translation  from  ancient,  and  in 
most  respects,  admittedly  accurate  Hebrew  manu- 
scripts. This  appears  to  me  to  annul  the  plea  of 
contemporary  usage  and  to  throw  it  out  of  court 
by  force  of  a  cureless  anachronism.  The  ques- 
tion of  substituting  an  idiomatic  sense  for  an 
obvious  translation  must  be  settled  solely  by  an 
appeal  to  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  Sep- 
tuagint translation ;  and  such  an  appeal,  I  am 
fully  convinced,  will  not  sustain  the  accepted 
reading. 

The  Septuagint  follows  the  Hebrew  with  se- 
vere fidelity,  using  hebdomas  (epdopas )  for  SJiabua, 
week,  as  in  Gen.  xxix,  27,  28 ;  Exod.  xxxiv,  22 ; 
Lev.  xii,  5 ;  Num.  xxviii,  26 ;  DeuL  xvi,  9, 10, 16 ; 
2  Chron.  viii,  13 ;  Dan.  ix,  24-27 ;  x,  2,  3.  In 
Dan.  x,  2,  3,  it  is  weeks  of  days. 


THE  SABBATH.  105 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  Sabbath  is  re- 
ferred to  as  the  Sabbath,  the  proper  name — 
oaft^arov — is  employed.  Witness  one  hundred 
instances  of  its  use,  as  follows :  Exod.  xvi, 
23,  25,  26,  29 ;  xx,  8,  10 ;  xxxi,  13,  14,  15,  16 ; 
xxxv,  2,  3 ;  Lev.  xvi,  31 ;  xix,  3,  30 ;  xxiii, 
3 2,  15,  32 2,  38 ;  xxiv,  8 ;  xxv,  2,  4,  6 ;  xxvi, 
2,  34 2,  35,  43;  Num.  xv,  32;  xxv,  9,  10; 
Dent,  v,  12,  14,  15  ;  2  Kings  iv,  23 ;  xi,  5,  7,  9 2 ; 
1  Chron.  ix,  32 2 ;  xxiii,  31 ;  2  Chron.  ii,  4 ; 
viii,  13 ;  xxiii,  4,  8,  8 ;  xxxi,  3 ;  xxxvi,  21 ; 
Neh.  ix,  14 ;  x,  31 2,  33 ;  xiii,  15 2,  16,  17,  18, 
19 3,  21,  22  ;  Psa.  xcii,  title ;  Isa.  i,  13 ;  Ivi,  2, 4,  6 ; 
Iviii,  13 2 ;  Ixvi,  23 2 ;  Jer.  xvii,  21,  22 2,  24 2,  27 2 ; 
Lam.  ii,  6 ;  Ezek.  xx,  12,  13,  16,  20,  21,  24 ; 
xxii,  8,  26 ;  xxiii,  38  ;  xliv,  24 ;  xlv,  17 ;  xlvi, 
1,  3,  4,  12 ;  Hos.  ii,  11 ;  Amos  viii,  5. 

In  all  these  numerous  instances — which  in- 
clude the  entire  number  except  the  three  easily 
explained  in  a  preceding  place — Sabbath  in  the 
Hebrew  is  rendered  by  Sabbath  in  the  Septuagint. 
Ought  not  such  exactness  of  discrimination  be- 
tween Jiebdomas  and  Sabbaton  to  end  dispute  ? 

Now  return  to  the  text  in  Matthew.    Mm  (mid) 


106  THE  SABBATH. 

means  one.  It  is  often  intensive,  and  takes  the 
sense  of  first  when  emphatic,  or  used  to  desig- 
nate by  absolute  priority,  or  by  pre-eminence.  It 
occurs  seventy-nine  times  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  is  rendered  first  only  nine  times,  and  of  these 
eight  are  found  in  connection  with  the  resurrec- 
tion Sabbath.  Matt,  xxviii,  1 ;  Mark  xvi,  2,  9  ; 
Luke  xxiv,  1 ;  John  xx,  1, 19  ;  Acts  xx,  1 ;  1  Cor. 
xvi,  2.  The  ninth  case  is  Titus  iii,  10,  which 
admits  of  a  different  rendering.  M.iav — Mian — 
in  th£  passage  under  view,  is  feminine  and  in  the 

t^^^*^ 

,  leaving  a  noun  in  the  dafrwe  feminine  to 
be  supplied,  which  noun  is  unquestionably  rj^epav 
(hemeran,  day).  To  leave  fjjjiepa — hemera — (day) 
to  be  supplied  after  \iia  (mia)  is  a  frequent  usage 
in  Septuagint  Greek,  from  which  the  evangelists 
obtained  their  forms  and  quotations.  See  Gen. 
viii,  13  ;  Lev.  xxiii,  24;  Num.  i,  1,  18  ;  xxix,  1; 
xxxiii,  38;  Deut.  i,  3  ;  Ezek.  xxvi,  1;  xxix,  17; 
xxxii,  1 ;  xlv,  18.  With  this  form  the  New 
Testament  writers  were  familiar.  Indeed,  it  is 
the  natural  form  of  speech  where  the  first  of  two 
or  more  is  indicated.  Hpurog  (protos,  first)  is  the 
common  ordinal  in  the  Greek.  Mm — mia — 


THE  SABBATH.  107 

therefore   appears  to  serve  as  a  technic  or  a 
special  qualifier  of  the  Sunday-Sabbath. 

We  now  have  the  first  day  (more  strictly,  day 
one)  of  whatever  is  meant  by  oapparw  (Sabba- 
ton).  This  word  is  the  genitive  plural  of  Sab- 
bath. I  think  we  have  seen  that  Sabbath  never 
means  week  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  or  in  the 
Septuagint  Greek.  Sapparov — Sabbaton — (Sab- 
bath) is  used,  singular  and  plural,  sixty-eight 
times  in  the  New  Testament.  Singularly  enough 
it  is  rendered  week  only  nine  times,  and  these,  all 
save  one,  in  connection  with  the  day  of  the  res- 
urrection. The  one  exception  alluded  to  is  Luke 
xviii,  12,  Nrjarevo  dig  rov  aaj3j3aTo^ — Nesteuo  dis 
ton  Sabbatou — "  I  fast  twice  in  the  week."  This 
language  of  a  Pharisee  relates  to  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath, and  we  might  be  well  content  to  leave  the 
advocates  of  Saturday-Sabbath  to  harmonize  it 
with  their  theory.  Fifty-seven  times  the  word  is 
the  name  of  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  Let  the  reader 
attempt  to  substitute  week  in  any  of  the  passages 
except  that  alluded  to  in  Luke — and  that  certainly 
admits  of  doubt — and  see  what  sense  he  will 
make.  The  week  was  made  for  man,  not  man 


108  THE  SABBATH. 

for  the  week ;  Lord  of  the  week ;  whether  he 
would  heal  on  the  week-day ;  went  into  the  syn- 
agogue on  the  week ;  doth  not  each  one  of  you 
on  the  week  loose  his  beast  from  the  stall  ?  the 
Jews  sought  to  kill  him  because  he  had  broken 
the  week.  If  such  readings  are  satisfactory  our 
Saturday-Sabbath  brethren  shall  have  a  monop- 
oly of  them. 

But  why  is  the  genitive  plural  (of  the  Sab- 
baths) used  ? 

1.  Because  the  Hebrews  had  more  than  one 
Sabbath,  and  the  plural  form  came  necessarily 
into  use,  and  was  followed  by  the  LXX  in  the 
Septuagint  translation. 

2.  Because  this  form,  the  gen.  plu.,  was  of 
frequent  and  necessary  use  to  express  the  thought 
of  God.    See  Exod.  xxxv,  3 ;  Lev.  xxiv,  8 ;  Num. 
xv,  32 ;  xxviii,  9 ;  Deut.  v,  12, 15 ;  Jer.  xvii,  21, 
22,2  24,2  27,2  and  especially  Exod.  xx,  8.     In  all 
these  cases  the  Greek  reads  the  day  of  the  Sab- 
laths. 

This  language  was  in  familiar  and  intelligent 
use  among  devout  Israelites,  especially  that  of 
the  last  citation,  which  is  the  fourth  command- 


THE  SABBATH.  109 

ment  as  it  stands  in  the  Septuagint  Mv^o^rt  TV\V 
rtfiepav  ruv  oafiparuv — Mnestheti  ten  hemercm  ton 
Sabbaton — "  Remember  the  day  of  the  Sabbaths  to 
hallow  it."  If  the  question  should  arise  whether 
this  is  an  authentic  translation  of  the  ancient  He- 
brew text  I  have  only  to  say  that  the  spirit  of 
inspiration  appears  to  have  answered  it  by  lead- 
ing all  the  evangelists  and  the  apostle  to  the 
Gentiles  to  use  this  form  in  a  revelation  designed 
for  all  the  world  and  all  time. 

3.  The  form  is  the  same  as  that  which  desig- 
nates the  Jewish  Sabbaths  in  the  same  passages, 
which  Sabbaths  were  now  passing  away  with  the 
superseded  dispensation,  of  which  they  had  been 
so  important  a  feature.     Otjje  6e  aapparuv — Opse 
de  Sabbaton — "  in  the  end  of  the  Sabbaths,"  pre- 
cedes \LICLV  aafiparuv — mian  Sabbaton — "  the  first 
of  the  Sabbaths,"  in  the  same  verse. 

4.  It  was,  in  fact,  relatively  the  first  of  the  Sab- 
baths, as  being  the  restoration  of  ^the  primeval 
Sabbath. 

5.  It  was  the  first  of  the  Sabbaths  by  pre- 
eminence, as  being  the  memorial  of  the  supreme 
event  on  which  the  whole  scheme  of  redemption 


110  THE  SABBATH. 

was  pivoted — namely,  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
from  the  dead. 

6.  It  was  first  as  celebrating  and  signalizing  the 
rest  which  followed  the  completed  provisional 
work  of  human  salvation. 

"  'Twas  great  to  speak  a  world  from  naught, 
But  greater  to  redeem." 

The  observing  reader  will  notice  that  there  is 
not  only  a  change  of  day,  but  a  change  also  in  the 
beginning  of  the  day.  The  Hebrew  Sabbath  be- 
gan in  the  evening — to  commemorate  the  "  night 
much  to  be  remembered,"  when- the  Hebrews  ate 
the  passover-supper  with  girded  loins — and  lasted 
through  the  subsequent  day  till  evening,  to  com- 
memorate the  day  of  their  escape  from  bondage. 
No  such  reason  could  exist  for  another  people. 
Hence  the  adoption  of  the  Roman  or  common 
day  (see  Alford,  Bengel,  and  others)  as  is  clearly 
shown  by  the  text.  "As  it  began  to  dawn  toward 
the  first  day  "  is  language  wholly  unsuitable  to  the 
Jewish  Sabbath,  as  the  dawn  would  have  been 
about  the  middle  of  the  day,  which  began  at  sun- 
set. The  same  fact  is  evidenced  by  every  evan- 
gelist. 


THE  SABBATH.  HI 

I  have  dwelt  so  long  on  the  text  from  Matthew 
for  the  reason  that  it  so  agrees  with  its  parallels 
as  to  make  it  needless  to  consider  every  one  in 
extenso.  Thus  Mark  xvi,  2,  reads  kiav  Kpui  rrjg 
\LI<L<;  oaj3/3aTG)v — Lion  proi  tes  mias  Sabbaton — 
"  very  early  in  the  morning,  the  first  of  the  Sab- 
baths." V.  9  reads  Avaarag  6e  npwi  Trpwn/  oapparov 
— Anastas  cki^proi  prote  Sdbbatou — which  varies 
in  a  term,  using  irpurri  oaftftaro\ — -prote  Sdbbatofy  (/— 4 
— "  the  early  dawn  of  the  Sabbath."  Meyer 
doubts  whether  Mark  wrote  the  verse,  and  Ben- 
gel  construes  nput-^proi — with  etyawrj — ephane — 
(appeared)  making  the  reading,  very  early  in  the 
morning  he  appeared,  instead  of  avaarag — anas- 
tas — was  risen. 

Luke  xxiv,  1,  Trj  6s  f.ua  ruv  oaQparuv — Te  de  mia 
ton  Sabbaton — "  Now  upon  the  first  of  the  Sab- 
baths." John  xx,  i,  reads  the  same  as  Luke  xxiv,  1. 
Acts  xx,  7,  reads  Ev  de  TTJ  \iia  ruv  oapparuv — En 
de  te  mia  ton  Sabbaton — "  And  on  the  first  of  the 
Sabbaths,"  when  the  disciples  came  together  to 
.break  bread,  etc.,  stating  a  prevalent  usage. 

John  xx,  19,  while  it  confirms  the  reading  in- 
sisted upon,  shows,  also,  that  the  Roman  day  was 


112  THE  SABBATH. 

adopted,  and  that  our  Lord  met  his  disciples  in 
the  evening  of  that  day,  as  the  26th  verse  shows 
that  he  met  them  again  on  the  next  Lord's  day. 

I  must  ask  the  reader's  special  attention  to 
some  passages  in  Acts  xiii.  Paul  and  his  com- 
pany came  to  Antioch,  in  Pisidia,  and  entered  the 
synagogue  of  the  Jews  on  their  Sabbath.  Upon 
invitation  Paul  preached  so  searching  a  sermon 
as  greatly  to  excite  the  anger  of  his  auditors.  In 
course  of  it  he  told  them  that  the  Christ  whom 
he  preached  was  the  burden  of  the  prophets  which 
were  read  in  their  hearing  every  Sabbath.  No 
one  pretends  to  doubt  that  the  Jewish  Sabbath 
is  meant  in  vs.  14  and  27.  The  Jews  left  the 
synagogue  in  anger,  and,  when  they  were  gone 
out,  the  Gentiles  besought  that  these  words  might 
be  preached  to  them  ^iq  TO  fiera^v  oapfiarov — eis 
to  metaxu  Sabbaton — "in  the  Sabbath  between." 

Now  what  was  the  Sabbath  "  between  ?  "  The 
Gentiles  of  course  knew  that  the  Christians  kept 
sacred  the  day  following  the  Jewish  Sabbath. 
What  more  natural  than  that  they  should  desire 
to  hear  the  truths  repeated  and  enlarged  upon  on 
a  day  when  the  anger  of  the  Jews  would  not 


THE  SABBATH.  113 

interrupt?  Merafr — Metaxu — indicates  nearness, 
closeness-at-hand,  as  in  Matt,  xviii,  15,  "  Tell  him 
his  fault  between  thee  and  him  alone."  Luke  xi, 
51,  "  Between  the  altar  and  the  temple."  Acts 
xii,  6,  "Sleeping  between  two  soldiers."  The 
clear  inference  appears  to  be  that  it  was  the  Sab- 
bath between  this  and  the  next  Jewish  Sabbath. 
Bear  in  mind  that  the  evangelists  and  the  apostles 
had  no  other  name  than  Sabbath  for  the  day  of 
resurrection. 

But  the  narrative  continues:  To>  re  e^opeM 
<7a/30ar6> — To  te  echomeno  Sabbato — "  on  the  Sab- 
bath just  at  hand,"  nearly  the  whole  city  came 
together  to  hear  the  word  of  God"  [the  Lord], 
Echomene  is  a  term  of  strict  meaning  and  limited 
use.  The  lexicons  define  it  thus:  "E^o^ev?/ — 
Eclioinene — the  day  after  to-morrow — that  is, 
which  is  next  or  contiguous  to  to-morrow ;  from 
E%ofjiev()$  — Echomenos — holding  of,  following, 
subsequent,  next,  contiguous,  neighboring." 
"E^o^G)?  adv. — echomenos — immediately  after." 
These  two  strong  words,  witnessing  together, 
would  appear  to  decide  the  question  on  soundly 
critical  grounds.  Once  get  rid  of  the  bewilder- 


114  THE  SABBATH. 

ing  notion  of  an  "idiomatic  sense"  of  Sabbath, 
arid  we  shall  see  in  the  narrative  a  clear  and 
simple  statement  of  the  fact  that  "  when  the 
synagogue  broke  up  "  (R.  V.)  the  Gentiles  asked 
Paul  to  preach  to  them  on  the  Christian  Sabbath 
just  at  hand,  with  which  request  he  complied.  If 
further  confirmation  were  needed  it  could  be 
found  in  the  succeeding  verses :  "  Paul  and  Bar- 
nabas spake  out  boldly,  and  said.  It  was  necessary 
that  the  word  of  God  should  first  be  spoken  to 
you  [Jews].  Seeing  ye  thrust  it  from  you,  and 
judge  yourselves  unworthy  of  eternal  life,  lo,  we 
turn  to  the  Gentiles.  For  so  hath  the  Lord  com- 
manded us,  saying,  I  have  set  thee  for  a  light  of 
the  Gentiles,  that  thou  shouldst  be  for  salvation 
unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth.  And  as  the 
Gentiles  heard  this,  they  were  glad,  and  glorified 
the  word  of  God  "  [the  Lord]. 

Thus  far  the  argument  has  been  severely 
scriptural.  It  would  be  easy  to  add  a  strong  col- 
lateral argument  drawn  from  the  providence 
which  has  attended  the  consecration  of  resurrec- 
tion day  to  holy  uses.  This  day  was,  in  fact,  to  be- 
come the  sacred  day  of  the  great  body  of  the 


THE  SABBATH.  115 

Christian  world.  The  change,  right  or  wrong, 
was  destined  to  take  place,  and  it  was  too  great  to 
pass  without  notice.  It  was  to  be — as  must  have 
lain  within  the  foreknowledge  of  the  Lord — the 
Sabbath  of  the  Christian  Church  in  its  then 
future  career.  To  it  were  to  cling  ordinances, 
sacraments,  public  worship,  and  the  agencies  of 
evangelization.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it 
must  have  appeared  to  the  Head  of  the  Church  a 
matter  of  commanding  interest,  and  could  not 
have  been  passed  as  indifferent.  That  the  day 
did  change  in  practice  all  the  world  knows.  If 
it  was  to  be  wickedly  and  profanely  changed, 
here  was  the  place  to  set  the  beacon  of  warning. 
If  it  was  to  be  changed  by  the  will  of  God,  here 
was  the  place  to  say  just  what  the  Spirit  does  say 
through  all  the  evangelists.  And  when  we  add 
to  the  precurrent  probabilities  the  list  of  "  teach- 
ing facts  "  given  in  preceding  pages,  "  the  dem- 
onstration by  results  "  becomes  overwhelmingly 
strong.  Albeit  the  Scriptures  themselves  leave 
no  room  for  cavil  and  no  need  for  collaterals. 

The  Lord,  who  constantly  vindicated  his  con- 
duct against  the  charge  of  Sabbath-breaking,  had 


116  THE  SABBATH. 

a  sovereign  right  to  set  the  day  forward,  rel- 
atively, to  its  primeval  place,  and  did  so  set  it,  as 
the  record  clearly  proves.  There  could  be  no 
stronger  proof  than  is  given,  in  the  sacred  desig- 
nation bestowed  upon  the  day.  The  day  on 
which  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  is  never  called 
by  any  other  name  than  Sabbath,  save  in  the  one 
instance  in  the  Revelation.  It  is  time,  therefore, 
that  the  Christian  world  should  dismiss  the  name 
Sunday  and  call  the  day  what  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  calls  it — the  Sabbath.  That  the  early 
Christian  fathers,  in  their  constant  and  harassing 
controversies  with  the  Jews,  their  remorseless 
persecutors,  rather  than  contend  with  such  adver- 
saries for  a  name  used  the  words  Sunday,  Eighth 
day,  First  day,  and  Resurrection  day,  only  shows 
their  confidence  in  the  strength  of  their  cause  and 
their  unwillingness  to  contend  for  a  word.  That 
they  devoted  the  day  to  sacred  uses  and  regarded 
it  as  representing  the  primeval  Sabbath  is  made 
apparent  by  many  passages.  It  will  be  sufficient 
to  quote  a  full  statement  of  the  Christian  uses  of 
the  day  and  its  relation  to  the  original  Sabbath 
from  Justin  Martyr,  an  eminent  Gentile  convert. 


THE  SABBATH.  117 

born  about  110  or  114  A.  D.,  in  a  village  of 
Samaria,  near  Jacob's  well,  and  amply  qualified 
by  learning,  devoutness,  and  travel  to  state  the 
faith  of  the  early  Church.  After  dwelling  on  the 
EvXapiGTia  —  Eucharistia  —  (eucharist)  he  pro- 
ceeds to  describe  the  weekly  worship  of  the 
Christians  thus:  "And we  afterward  continually 
remind  each  other  of  these  things.  And  the 
wealthy  among  us  help  the  needy ;  and  we  always 
keep  together ;  and  for  all  things  wherewith  we 
are  supplied  we  bless  the  Maker  of  all  through 
his  Son  Jesus  Christ  and  through  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  on  the  day  called  Sunday  all  who 
live  in  cities  or  in  the  country  gather  together  to 
one  place,  and  the  memoirs  of  the  apostles  or  the 
writings  of  the  prophets  are  read  as  long  as  time 
permits ;  then,  when  the  reading  has  ceased,  the 
president  verbally  instructs  and  exhorts  to  the 
imitation  of  these  good  things.  Then  we  all  rise 
together  and  pray,  and,  as  we  before  said,  when 
our  prayer  is  ended  bread  and  wine  and  water 
are  brought,  and  the  president  in  like  manner 
offers  prayers  and  thanksgivings  according  to 
his  ability,  and  the  people  assent,  saying  amen ; 


118  THE  SABBATH. 

and  there  is  a  distribution  to  each  and  a  partici- 
pation of  that  over  which  thanks  have  been  given, 
and  to  those  who  are  absent  a  portion  is  sent  by 
the  deacons.  And  they  who  are  well-to-do  and 
willing  give  what  each  sees  fit,  and  what  is  col- 
lected is  deposited  with  the  president,  who  succors 
the  orphans  and  widows  and  those  who,  through 
sickness  or  any  other  cause,  are  in  want,  and 
those  who  are  in  bonds,  and  the  strangers  sojourn- 
ing among  us,  and,  in  a  word,  takes  care  of  all 
who  are  in  need.  But  Sunday  is  the  day  on 
which  we  all  hold  our  common  assembly,  because 
it  is  the  first  day  on  which  God,  having  wrought 
a  change  in  the  darkness  and  matter,  made  the 
world,  and  Jesus  Christ  our  Saviour  on  the  same 
day  rose  from  the  dead.  For  he  was  crucified  on 
.  the  day  before  that  of  Saturn,  and  on  the  day 
after  that  of  Saturn,  which  is  the  day  of  the  sun, 
having  appeared  to  his  apostles  and  disciples,  he 
taught  them  these  things  which  we  have  submit- 
ted to  you  also  for  your  consideration." 

It  is  clear  not  only  that  the  sacredness  was 
transferred  from  Saturday  to  Sunday,  but  also 
that  the  time  of  beginning  the  day  was  changed. 


THE  SABBATH.  119 

All  the  evangelists  speak  of  the  day  in  a  way  to 
leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  the  Eoman  day  had 
been  and  was  to  be  adopted.  Alf ord  is  explicit 
on  this  point.  On  Matt,  xxviii.  1,  he  has  these  em- 
phatic words  :  a  Oi/>e  6e  aaQparuv — opse  de  Sab- 
baton — not  at  the  end  of  the  week.  The  words 
aaj3/3aro)v — Sabbaton — and  fua  oapParuv — mia 
Sabbaton — are  opposed,  both  being  days.  .  .  . 
It  is  best  to  interpret  a  doubtful  expression  in 
unison  with  the  other  testimonies,  and  to  sup- 
pose that  here  both  the  day  and  the  Breaking  of 
the  day  are  taken  in  their  natural,  not  in  their 
Jewish  sense."  In  this  position  the  eminent 
translator  is  supported  by  men  not  less  eminent, 
and,  best  of  all,  by  the  structure  and  necessary 
sense  of  the  sacred  writings  which  he  translates. 
The  reason  for  beginning  the  Sabbath  in  the 
evening  was  no  longer  pertinent,  and  the  conven- 
ience of  a  world-wide  worship  would  be  better 
served  by  a  day  in  harmony  with  the  calendars  of 
ordinary  life,  as  three  of  the  reasons  which  un- 
derlay the  Hebrew  Sabbath  were  inapplicable  to 
any  other  people. 

The  general  effect   of   these  reasonings   and 


120  THE  SABBATR 

authorities  appears  to  me  to  sustain  the  following 
position : 

The  Jewish  Sabbaths  and  feasts  were  a  part  of 
the  regimen  of  the  chosen  people.  x  They  be- 
longed to  a  dispensation  which  was  now  super- 
seded. Sacrifices  had  no  significance  after  the 
death  of  Jesus,  and  ceremonials  no  obligation 
after  his  resurrection.  After  that  glorious  morn- 
ing, to  observe  the  Jewish  Sabbath,  with  its  sac- 
rifices and  rites,  was  to  deny  the  Messiahship  of 
the  risen  Christ.  These  Sabbaths,  feasts,  cer- 
emonials belonged  to  a  dispensation  now  com- 
pleted. They  could  have  no  legitimate  place  in 
the  new,  and  could  retain  their  hold  on  human 
reverence  only  as  matters  of  great  historic  inter- 
est, their  obligation  having  expired  by  virtue  of 
the  expiration  of  the  reasons  that  supported  them. 
u  Le&  stat  dum  ratio  rwmet "  is  a  maxim  which 
prevails  in  the  kingdom  of  God  as  well  as  in  the 
kingdoms  of  men.  "  At  [or  after]  the  end  of 
the  [Jewish]  Sabbaths "  "  the  first  of  the  Sab- 
baths "  of  the  new  dispensation  was  ushered  in 
with  the  rolling  away  of  the  stone  from  the  door 
of  the  sepulcher  and  the  coming  forth  of  the  JSes- 


THE  SABBATH.  121 

urrection  and  the  Life.  So  did  the  all-conquer- 
ing God  our  Saviour  change  the  day,  that  the 
world  might,  on  the  same  precious  day,  commem- 
orate the  creation  and  the  new  creation ;  the 
finished  work  of  fitting  up  an  abode  for  the  race 
and  the  finished  work  and  glorious  certification 
of  the  redemption  of  the  race.  This  is  ike  day 
the  LOKD  hath  made,  we  will  rejoice  and  l>e  glad 
-in  it !  Both  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek  have 
facile  and  unconfusing  ways  of  expressing  "  the 
morrow  after  the  Sabbath  ; "  but  God  the  Holy 
Ghost  put  the  day  in  its  place  and  fixed  its  name 
and  sacredness  forever. 

That  Sabbath  means  "  week  by  synecdoche  "  is 
a  theory  which,  I  respectfully  submit,  must  be 
abandoned,  as  it  fails  every-where,  unless  its 
advocates  resort  to  a  bald  petitio  prindpii  and 
quote  in  its  support  the  very  scriptures  in  con- 
troversy. 

Should  an  ardent  disputant  persist  in  arguing 
that,  although  Sabbath  never  means  week  when 
applied  to  the  seventh  day,  unless  in  the  doubt- 
ful case  of  Luke  xviii,  12,  yet  it  always  means 
week  when  it  designates  the  eighth  or  first  day, 


122  THE  SABBATH. 

I  should  mildly  point  to  the  marvel  that  the 
"Hebraism"  passed  over  the  entire  period  of 
Hebrew  history  proper,  to  expend  its  mysterious 
force  exclusively  on  the  New  Dispensation. 
Such  a  procedure  would  counter-work  the  gen- 
eral scheme  of  a  revelation  intended  for  instruc- 
tion in  righteousness,  that  the  man  of  God  may 
be  perfectly  instructed  in  good  works. 


THE  SABBATH.  123 


CHAPTER   YIIL 
PATRISTIC  TESTIMONY  AND  USAGE, 

IT  would  be  easy  to  fill  pages  with  the  testimony 
of  the  fathers ;  but  the  main  point  in  con- 
troversy may  be  settled  within  limited  space. 
The  persistency  with  which  Saturday-Sabbath 
writers  evade  the  true  issue  here  is  another  of 
many  proofs  of  the  degree  to  which  a  favorite 
theory  may  blind  the  judgment.  They  spend 
much  time  dwelling  upon  the  superstitions  which 
crept  into  the  Church  in  the  early  centuries,  while 
the  vital  questions,  as  to  this  issue,  are  but  two : 
First.  Were  the  fathers  competent  and  credible 
witnesses  concerning  the  query  whether  the 
Lord's  day,  or  First  day,  was  recognized  as  ex- 
ceptional; and,  second,  Did  the  disciples  gen- 
erally consecrate  the  day  to  the  celebration  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  and  to  worshipful  rejoicing  in  the 


124  THE  SABBATH. 

resurrection  of  Jesus  ?  In  other  words,  Was  it 
their  Sabbath? 

These  questions  admit  of  but  one  intelligent 
answer.  The  superstitions  and  mistakes  attributed 
to  the  patristic  writers  in  no  manner  impair  their 
competency  or  credibility  as  witnesses  of  facts. 
And  their  testimony  puts  it  beyond  rational  dis- 
pute that  the  early  Church  did  so  regard  and 
treat  the  Lord's  day.  Therefore  I  deem  it  need- 
less to  occupy  space  with  quotations  which  may 
be  found  in  a  score  of  works  on  the  Sabbath. 

Why  the  fathers  did  not  call  the  day  Sabbath 
is  an  inquiry  of  more  significance  than  would  at 
first  appear.  We  have  seen  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
gave  the  name  Sabbath  to  resurrection-day.  Why, 
then,  did  the  practice  prevail  of  calling  it  Eighth- 
day,  Lord's-day,  Resurrection-day,  Day  of  the 
Sun,  Sunday  ?  All  which  names  were  applied  to 
the  same  day. 

It  is  indisputable  that  in  their  controversies 
with  the  Jews,  who,  as  Tertullian  affirms,  were 
"  the  seed-plot  of  all  the  calumnies  "  against  the 
Christians,  they  suffered  these  adversaries  to  re- 
tain the  name  to  which  they  so  tenaciously  clung. 


THE  SABBATH.  125 

The  Jews  were  numerous  and,  in  many  ways, 
powerful,  and  they  clung  to  the  name  Sabbath  as 
some  small  sects  in  our  own  time  try  to  monop- 
olize the  name  Christian.  JiWtin  Martyr,  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  Tertullian,  Hippolytus,  Cyprian, 
Eusebius,  Chrysostom,  and  August^,  and  others 
of  later  date,  more  intent  on  truth  than  names, 
left  their  Judaic  disputants  the  name  of  a  super- 
seded day,  while  they  demolished  their  assump- 
tions respecting  law  and  obligation.  It  is  on  this 
account  that  readers  of  patristic  literature  have 
to  exercise  vigilance  to  avoid  confusion  of  thought. 
It  may  also  be  added  that,  Sabbath  having  so  long 
been  the  designation  of  Saturday,  it  appeared  ex- 
pedient, for  the  time,  to  employ  a  distinctive  name 
in  order  to  prevent  the  confounding  of  Lord's- 
day  with  the  Jewish  day. 

In  several  instances  the  fathers  use  Sabbath  in 
the  Jewish  sense.  This  was  almost  unavoidable 
in  controversy,  and  in  discriminating  the  worship 
days  of  Jews  and  Christians.  It  is  also  true  that 
the  Nazarenes  and  Ebionites — a  sort  of  Jew- 
Christians — kept  both  days,  thus  ignoring  half 
the  law,  namely,  "  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor." 


126  THE  SABBATH. 

These  persons  were  not  considered  as  belonging 
properly  to  the  Church,  although,  in  many  par- 
ticulars, they  sympathized  with  it.  In  the  time 
of  Justin  Martyr  it  was  a  grave  question  whether 
a  Christian  who  observed  Sabbath  (Saturday) 
should  be  admitted  to  the  holy  mysteries. 
"  Against  such  Sabbatarianism  not  only  he,  but 
Clement  and  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  Tertullian, 
Victorine,  Novatian,  and  others,  testified." 

There  is  a  disputed  passage  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment which  falls  in  place  here — Matt,  xxiv,  20. 
The  Lord  instructed  his  disciples  to  pray  that 
their  flight  from  Jerusalem  might  not  be  in  the 
winter,  nor  on  the  Sabbath.  He  who  enjoined 
the  prayer  was  able  to  insure  its  answer.  He 
gave  them  a  sign  by  which  they  should  know 
when  to  flee.  When  "  they  should  see  the  abomi- 
nation of  desolation  [the  military  ensigns  of 
Rome]  set  up  in  the  holy  place,"  they  were  to 
make  their  escape.  Gilfillan  gives  satisfactory 
reasons  for  the  opinion  that  they  escaped  to  Pella 
on  Saturday,  while  Titus — knowing  that  the  Jews 
would  not  molest  him  on  that  day — employed  his 
army  in  preparing  and  setting  machines  and 


THE  SABBATH.  127 

making  other  approaches  for  an  assault  on  Sun- 
day. It  is  a  curious,  fact — mentioned  by  Kitto  in 
his  History  of  Palestine,  Vol.  II,  p.  756 — that 
Titus  employed  Saturdays  in  preparing  for  at- 
tacks on  the  succeeding  Sundays.  Thus  his  first 
assault  was  on  Sunday,  April  22,  A.  D.  70.  Part 
of  the  Lower  City  was  taken  Sunday,  May  6 ; 
the  Temple  was  burned  Sunday,  August  5 ;  and 
the  Upper  City  was  taken  and  destroyed  Sunday, 
September  2.  The  Christians  could  not  have  es- 
caped on  the  days  of  assault.  Saturdays  were  the 
favorable  days.  Thus  the  Hearer  of  prayer  put 
another  mark  of  approbation  upon  the  first  of 
the  Sabbaths.  His  disciples,  in  answer  to  their 
prayer,  escaped  in  summer  and  on  a  secular  day. 
A  flagrant  falsification  of  history  is  prevalent 
among  Saturday-Sabbath  people.  Many  who 
know  nothing  of  Constantine  or  the  Council  of 
Nice,  save  what  they  have  read  in  the  contro- 
versial writings  of  their  own  peculiar  school,  are 
loud  and  bold  in  affirming  that  Constantine  insti- 
tuted or  first  gave  authority  to  the  Christian  Sab- 
bath, and  -the  Council  of  Nice,  under  his  imperial 
control,  confirmed  the  innovation  by  fixing  the 


128  THE  SABBATH. 

annual  festival  of  the  passover  on  Sunday ;  and 
Sylvester,  Bishop  of  Rome,  joined  in  the  con- 
spiracy against  a  holy  Sabbath  by  helping  to 
transform  the  festival  of  the  sun  into  a  Christian 
institution.  As  a  popular  sample  of  this  sort  of 
one-eyed  reading  see  Andrews's  History  of  the 
Sabbath,  pp.  349,  350 :  "  Thus  it  is  seen  that  the 
law,  enacted  in  support  of  a  heathen  institution, 
after  a  few  years  came  to  be  considered  a  Chris- 
tian ordinance ;  and  Constantine  himself,  four 
years  after  his  Sunday  edict,  was  able  to  control 
the  Church,  as  represented  in  the  general  Council 
of  Nice,  so  as  to  cause  the  members  of  that  coun- 
cil to  establish  their  annual  festival  of  the  pass- 
over  upon  Sunday.  Paganism  had  prepared  the 
institution  from  ancient  days,  and  had  now  ele- 
vated it  to  supreme  power;  its  work  was  ac- 
complished. We  have  proved  that  the  Sunday 
festival  in  the  Christian  Church  had  no  Sab- 
batical character  before  the  time  of  Constantine. 
We  have  also  shown  that  heathenism,  in  the  per- 
son of  Constantine,  first  gave  to  Sunday  its  Sab- 
batical character,  and  in  the  very  act  of  doing  it 
designated  it  as  a  heathen,  and  not  as  a  Christian 


THE  SABBATH.  129 

festival,  thus  establishing  a  heat!  i  en  Sabbath.  It 
was  now  the  part  of  popery  authoritatively  to 
effect  its  transformation — a  work  which  it  was  not 
slow  to  perform.  Sylvester  was  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  while  Constantine  was  emperor.  How 
faithfully  he  acted  his  part  in  transforming  the 
festival  of  the  sun  into  a  Christian  institution  is 
seen  in  that,  by  his  apostolic  authority,  he  changed 
the  name  of  the  day,  giving  it  the  imposing  title 
of  LORD'S-DAY.  To  Constantine  and  to  Sylvester, 
therefore,  the  advocates  of  First-day  observance 
are  greatly  indebted.  The  one  elevated  it  as  a 
heathen  festival  to  the  throne  of  the  empire, 
making  it  a  day  of  rest  from  most  kinds  of  busi- 
ness ;  the  other  changed  it  into  a  Christian  insti- 
tution, giving  it  the  dignified  appellation  of 
LORD'S-DAY." 

I  have  given  so  long  a  quotation  because  it 
contains  the  distilled  essence  of  volumes  of 
paralogism  and  misreading,  and  also  because  it 
puts  so  many  false  and  contradictory  assertions 
into  small  space. 

Notice — First.  Constantine  was  a  heathen  wor- 
shiper of  the  sun — of  course  on  the  sun's  day — 
9 


130  THE  SABBATH. 

as  his  predecessors  had  been ;  and  he  elevated 
the  heathen  festival  of  Sunday  to  the  throne  of 
the  empire,  where — if  the  phrase  means  any 
tiling — it  had  long  been  recognized  by  all  cus- 
tomary forms  and  rites ! 

Second.  On  March  7,  A.  D.  321,  Constantino 
issued  his  edict  setting  Sunday  apart  for  Christian 
uses,  and  depriving  employers  of  the  power  to 
deprive  the  employed  of  a  day  of  worship. 
Andrews  quotes  from  Mosheim  to  prove  that  the 
emperor  was  not  truly  converted  till  three  years 
after  the  edict.  Yet  after  he  became  "  an  abso- 
lute Christian "  he  "  was  able  to  control  the 
Church,  as  represented  in  the  general  Council  of 
Nice,  so  as  to  cause  the  members  of  that  council" 
to  confirm  an  edict  which  he  had  issued  while  an 
unconverted  heathen ! 

Third.  "  Sunday  had  no  Sabbatical  character 
before  the  time  of  Constantine."  "  Heathenism, 
in  the  person  of  Constantine,  first  gave  Sunday 
its  Sabbatical  character ! " 

Pray,  what  sort  of  Sabbatical  character  could 
heathenism  give  to  any  day  ?  "What  constitutes 
Sabbatical  character?  A  day  of  weekly  recur- 


THE  SABBATH.  131 

rence,  set  apart  and  sacredly  observed  by  the 
"assembling"  or  "coming  together"  of  Chris- 
tians for  the  study  and  hearing  of  the  word  of 
God,  the  celebration  of  the  eucharist,  and  wor- 
shipful rejoicing  in  the  resurrection,  constitute  a 
Sabbatical  character  such  as  the  true  Sabbath 
has  to-day  among  devout  disciples  of  our  Lord. 
Do  Saturday-Sabbath  writers — I  say  writers,  for 
they  all  run  in  one  line  and  "  repeat  the  blunder 
o'er  and  o'er  " — do  Saturday-Sabbath  writers  ex- 
pect to  be  believed  when  they  affirm  that  this 
character  was  not  possessed  by  Sunday-Sabbath 
till  the  time  of  Constantine  ?  Andrews  himself, 
on  the  very  page  from  which  we  quote,  refers  to 
the  fact  that  one  of  the  fathers,  as  early  as  A.  D. 
200,  calls  Sunday  Lord's  day,  and  names  seven 
others  before  the  Council  of  Nice  who  apply 
the  same  name;  namely,  Tertullian,  Origen, 
Cyprian,  Anatolius,  Commodianus,  Victorinus, 
and  Peter  of  Alexandria.  With  singular  incon- 
sequence he  reasons  that  the  use  of  the  name  by 
these  eminent  fathers  signifies  nothing,  because 
they  do  not  claim  apostolic  authority  for  the 
designation !  Pray^  what  need  was  there  of  a 


132  THE  SABBATH. 

constant  iteration  of  such  a  claim,  since  it  was  as 
well  understood  as  Sabbath  among  the  Jews,  and  , 
an  apostle  had  set  the  first  example  of  using  it  ? 

Let  me  add  a  few  names  to  the  list  of  the 
fathers  given  above  :  Ignatius  to  the  Magnesians 
— p.  63,  Ante-Nicene  Fathers — rebukes  such  as 
kept  the  Sabbath  after  the  Jewish  manner,  and 
adds  :  "  After  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  let 
every  friend  of  Christ  keep  the  LorcPs-day  as  a 
festival,  the  Resurrection-day,  the  queen  and  chief 
of  all  the  days.  Looking  forward  to  this,  the 
prophet  declared,  '  To  the  end,  for  the  Eighth 
day,'  on  which  our  life  both  sprang  up  again 
and  the  victory  over  death  was  obtained  in 
Christ,  whom  the  children  of  perdition,  the  ene- 
mies of  the  Saviour,  deny." 

As  to  the  Sabbatic  character,  I  have  already 
quoted  the  illustrious  Justin  Martyr,  who  must 
be  rated  as  better  authority  than  Saturday-Sab- 
bath writers. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  thus  writes :  "  And  the 
LorcPs-day  Plato  prophetically  speaks  of  in  the 
tenth  book  of  the  Republic."  He  again  alludes 
to  it  by  name  in  these  words :  "  He,  in  fulfillment 


THE  SABBATH.  133 

of  the  precept,  according  to  the  Gospel,  keeps 
the  Lord?s-day,  when  he  abandons  an  evil  dispo- 
sition and  assumes  that  of  the  gnostic,  glorifying 
the  Lord's  resurrection  in  himself." 

Let  me  quote  a  sentence  from  Tertullian,  men- 
tioned in  Andrews's  list :  "  Not  the  I#r<P  8-day, 
nor  pentecost,  even  if  they  had  known  them, 
would  they  have  shared  with  us ;  for  they  would 
fear  lest  they  should  seem  to  be  Christians ! " — 
Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  TO. 

In  The  Constitutions  of  the  Holy  Apostles  V?Q 
have,  for  what  it  is  worth,  this  sentence:  "He 
was  crucified  on  the  day  of  the  preparation,  and 
rose  again  at  break  of  day  on  the  Lord?s-day" 

In  The  Teachings  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  there 
are  several  allusions  to  the  Lord's-day  by  name. 
Thus,  "  But  on  the  Lord's-day  do  ye  gather  your- 
selves together,  and  break  bread,  and  give  thanks- 
giving after  having  confessed  your  transgressions, 
that  your  sacrifice  may  be  pure." — Ante-Nicene 
Fathers,  Vol.  VII,  p.  381. 

I  have  dwelt  a  little  on  the  designation  of 
Lord's-day,  not  because  it  is  of  any  vital  impor- 
tance to  the  argument,  but  to  show  with  what 


134  THE  SABBATH. 

apparent  recklessness  of  truth  an  honest  man 
may  try  to  prop  a  false  theory.  Returning  to  a 
more  serious  answer  to  the  misstatements  quoted 
from  Andrews,  I  have  these  things  to  say : 

First.  As  already  abundantly  proved,  the 
Christian  Sabbath  had  been  sacredly  observed 
two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  years  before  Con- 
stantine  issued  his  Sunday-law. 

Of  John  xx,  26,  Dr.  Schaff  says :  "  This  is 
the  beginning  of  the  history  of  the  Lord's-day, 
which  to  this  day  has  never  suffered  a.  single  in- 
terruption in  Christian  lands,  except  for  a  brief 
period  of  madness  in  France  during  the  Reign  of 
Terror." 

Second.  The  decree  of  the  emperor — now  a 
Christian  by  conviction — simply  recognized  an 
existing  Christian  institution,  and  disclothed  his 
subjects  of  power  to  deprive  their  fellow  subjects 
of  their  day  of  rest  and  worship. 

Third.  The  question  of  the  weekly  Sabbath 
had  no  prominence  in  the  discussions  of  the 
Nicene  Council.  Ecclesiastical  discipline  of 
apostates  was  one  theme  of  earnest  discussion. 
The  time  of  the  passover — which  is  not  properly 


THE  SABBATH.  135 

a  Christian  festival — engaged  some  thought ;  but 
the  great  debate  was  on  the  Trinity — the  unity 
of  substance  between  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
There  was  no  manifested  difference  of  opinion 
with  respect  to  the  Sabbath. 

Fourth.  Constantine,  whose  veneration  for 
bishops  was  little  less  than  a  superstition,  pre- 
sided over  that  august  assembly,  composed  of 
three  hundred  and  eighteen  bishops  and  two 
thousand  and  forty-eight  ecclesiastics  of  lesser 
degree,  in  a  manner  so  gentle,  conciliatory,  and 
dignified  as  to  excite  the  admiration  of  students 
of  history.  At  later  periods  in  his  reign  age, 
gluttony,  and  arbitrary  power  bore  evil  fruits  and 
darkened  the  record  of  his  imperial  career. 

For  confirmation  of  the  above  statements  see 
Neander's  History  of  the  Christian  Church, 
edition  of  1849,  Vol.  II,  pp.  366-380.  Also 
same  volume,  pp.  217-221.  Also  Gieseler's 
Ecclesiastical  History,  Vol.  L,  pp.  257,  258,  and 
294-323.  Also  Beacon  Lights  of  History,  by 
Dr.  John  Lord,  Vol.  I,  pp.  249-272.  Also  read 
the  Nicene  Creed  itself,  which  may  be  found,  in 
Greek,  in  Gieseler,  Vol.  I,  p.  297,  and,  in  both 


136  THE  SABBATH. 

Greek  and  English,  in  McClintock  and  Strong's 
B'iblical  and  Theological  Encyclopedia ,  p.  256. 
It  would  be  as  historically  accurate  to  say  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  "  instituted "  Independence 
Day  as  that  Constantine  or  Sylvester,  or  both  of 
them  together,  instituted  the  Christian  Sabbath 
or  gave  to  Sunday  a  Sabbatical  character.  Con- 
stantine did  what  every  Christian  State  ought,  in 
substance,  to  do — that  is,  to  assure  to  every  man 
the  privilege  of  a  day  of  rest  and  worship,  if  he 
chooses  to  use  it. 

It  is  needless  to  heap  authority  upon  authority. 
Yet  one  can  scarcely  forbear  to  refer  to  author- 
ities higher  than  the  fathers,  who  recognized  a 
Sabbath  character  in  the  day  of  resurrection  long 
enough  before  Constantine  or  Sylvester.  Paul 
and  Luke  ought  to  be  accepted  as  credible  wit- 
nesses. In  Acts  xx,  7,  we  have  the  testimony  of 
both  principal  and  amanuensis :  "  On  the  first  of 
the  Sabbaths,  when  the  disciples  came  together 
to  break  bread."  'No  ingenuity  can  torture  this 
into  any  thing  less  than  a  prevalent  custom 
among  the  Christians  of  that  time,  "who,"  says 
Bengel,  "  were  met  together,  as  already  at  that 


THE  SABBATH.  137 

time  was  their  wont,  on  the  Lord's  day."  A 
literal  rendering,  with  the  obvious  ellipse  sup- 
plied, makes  the  passage,  if  possible,  still  stronger. 
"When  we  [ruv  padrjr^i^o)^ — the  disciples — 
come  together  to  break  bread."  Again — 1  Cor. 
xvi,  2 — "  On  the  first  of  the  Sabbaths,  let  every 
one  of  you  lay  by  him  in  store,"  etc.  We  have 
seen  the  prevalent  custom  of  the  early  Christians. 
Bead  again  Eev.  i :  John  "  was  in  the  Spirit  on 
the  Lord's  day."  What  day  was  that  ?  I  have 
read  with  care  all  that  Saturday-Sabbath  writers 
say  in  fheir  attempt  to  evade  the  force  of  this 
statement,  and  have  been  equally  amazed  at  the 
fatuity  and  the  futility  of  their  strenuous  en- 
deavor. Jehovah  (probably  Yaveh  before  the 
changing  of  the  vowel  points)  is  the  memorial 
name  which  God  in  -the  second  person  takes 
when  he  descends  in  mercy  into  the  affairs  of 
men.  It  was  a  name  so  sacred  that  the  Hebrews 
pronounced  it  only  in  whispers,  Kv^iog — Kurios 
— Lord — is  applied  to  Christ  as  an  equivalent 
term,  and  never  in  a  lower  sense  when  used  as  a 
distinctive  title.  But  the  context  puts  the  sense 
beyond  any  thing  but  purblind  dispute.  Bead  it. 


138  •     THE  SABBATH. 

It  is  a  vision  of  the  risen  LORD  ;  concerning  the 
will  and  work  of  the  LORD  ;  given  by  the  Spirit 
of  the  LORD,  on  the  day  of  the  LORD. 

It  has  been  already  shown  that  Jesus  our  LORD 

o^^/L^if^v^J^^^ 
aB-ged-  -tae-4ay  baeb  to  the  primeval  Sabbath, 

and  fixed  its  designation  by  a  teaching  fact  louder 
than  the  blast  of  a  trumpet  from  the  throne ;  the 
spirit  of  inspiration  made  an  indelible  record  of 
the  fact  in  immediate  connection  with  the  resur- 
rection ;  the  risen  Christ  put  special  distinction 
upon  the  day  of  his  resurrection,  and  that  the 
disciples  held  the  day  sacred  for  their  assemblings 
to  break  the  bread  of  the  eucharistic  supper,  and 
to  worship  the  risen  LORD  with  the  assured  hope 
and  mighty  joy  begotten  by  his  reviviscence. 
All  this  some  time  before  Constantine  and  Syl- 
vester! Constantine  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
might  as  well  have  attempted  to  "  institute  "  the 
resurrection  as  the  day  which  commemorates  it. 
It  is  worth  noting  in  this  place  that  the 
Outlook,  much  the  ablest  periodic  publication  of 
Saturday-Sabbath  advocates,  admits  that  the  early 
Christians  did  keep  the  Sunday  as  Sabbath,  but 
denies  that  they  had  divine  authority  for  so  do- 


THE  SABBATH.  139 

ing!     I  must  think  that  they  were  the  better 
judges. 

In  contrast  with  the  Saturday-Sabbath  sects 
stands  a  party  at  the  other  extreme,  maintaining 
that  all  Sabbaths  are  done  away  in  the  Christian 
Church,  or — what  practically  amounts  to  the 
same — that  every  day  is  a  Sabbath.  They  at- 
tempt to  support  so  untenable  a  theory  by  an 
appeal  to  Col.  ii,  16,  IT.  The  apostle  is  guard- 
ing the  Colossians  against  the  philosophy,  tradi- 
tions, rudiments,  and  ordinances  which  were  being 
used  to  obscure  and  deny  Christ.  They  had  in 
him  the  spiritual  import  of  circumcision  and  res- 
urrection. There  were  those  who  insisted  that 
Christians  ought  to  observe  ceremonial  eating 
and  drinking,  new  moons,  feast-days,  and  Jewish 
Sabbaths.  Hence  the  apostle  exhorts  them : 
"Let  no  man  therefore  judge  you  in  meat  or 
drink,  or  in  respect  of  a  feast-day,  or  of  the  new 
moon,  or  of  the  Sabbaths — aa^ar^v — Sabbaton." 
These  things  all  belong  to  the  same  category  and 
appear  in  the  same  relation.  Who  were  the  peo- 
ple that  demanded  the  observance  of  these  things, 
and  fiercely  accused  the  Christians  because  they 


140  THE  SABBATH. 

declined  to  regard  them  as  binding  on  their  con- 
sciences ?  None  other  than  the  Jews.  It  was, 
then,  the  Jewish  feasts  and  Sabbaths  which  they 
were  at  liberty  to  ignore.  To  observe  these  was 
to  deny  their  Lord.  They  were  but  "a  shadow 
of  things  to  come ; "  and,  the  foreshadowed  things 
having  come,  there  was  no  longer  need  of  the 
shadows.  Indeed,  they  could  no  longer  participate 
in  these  things  in  a  manner  to  satisfy  their  cap- 
tious critics  without  denying  the  Lord  that  bought 
them.  It  is  a  far-fetched  and  absurd  inference 
from  this  timely  piece  of  apostolic  instruction 
that  they  should  set  aside,  or  treat  as  indifferent, 
the  very  day  which  commemorated  the  sublime 
event  by  which  these  types  and  shadows  were 
fulfilled  and  superseded !  It  is  not  easy  to  refrain 
from  saying  that  such  a  "  lame  and  impotent  con- 
clusion" from  such  premises  is  a  ludicrous  non 
sequitur. 

As  logical  effects  of  the  preceding  argument 
note, 

First.  It  destroys  the  validity  of  the  following 
propositions : 

a.  The  Sabbath  is  and  has  always  been  the 


THE  SABBATH.  141 

seventh  day,  in  an    exact  astronomical    series, 
from  the  rest-day  of  creation. 

~b.  The  Sabbath  is  every-where  a  solar  day  of 
twenty-four  hours,  counting  from  evening  to 
evening. 

c.  Sabbath  always  means  "rest "  and  "  seventh." 

d.  The   fourth    commandment  applies  to  no 
day  but  the  Saturday-Sabbath  of  the  Jews,  and 
therefore  is  violated  by  keeping  the   Sunday- 
Sabbath  of  Christians. 

e.  As  the  law  requires  six  days  of  labor  and 
one  of  rest  it  is  the  duty  of  all  persons  in  health 
to  labor  on  the  Sunday-Sabbath. 

Second.  It  sustains  the  following  propositions  : 

a.  The  Sabbath  is  not  every-where  a  solar  day 
of  twenty-four  hours,  counting  from  evening. 

5.  The  Sabbath  is  not  an  absolute,  but  a  rela- 
tive seventh — a  seventh  relatively  to  six  days  of 
secular  employment. 

-c.  The  Sabbath  law  is  adjusted  to  the  shape 
and  motions  of  the  planet,  and  is  obeyable  at  the 
poles  as  at  the  equator  ;  by  voyagers  eastward  as 
by  voyagers  westward.  God  does  not  contradict 
himself. 


142  THE  SABBATH. 

d.  Longitude    compels  an  accommodation  of 
time.     Without  such  accommodation  all  calen- 
dars, all  business,  all  Sabbaths,  all  distinctions  of 
week-days  and  Sabbaths,  and  all  religious  order, 
are  thrown  into  hopeless  confusion. 

e.  In  order  to  the  proper  and  profitable  keep- 
ing of  the  Sabbath  the  same  day  must  be  ob- 
served   by  the    same    people.      Otherwise    all 
industries  would  be  deranged  and  the  Sabbath 
quiet  destroyed.     If  a  part  of  the  civil  officers, 
or  the  operatives  in  shops  and  manufactories,  or 
the  hands  on  a  farm  were  to  keep  Sabbath,  and 
a  part  Saturday,  industrial  efficiency  and  order 
would  be  impossible,  while  the  quiet  of  the  Sab- 
bath would  be  sacrificed  to  the  disharmony  of 
the  situation.     And  if  the  same  day  is  to  be 
guaranteed  and  guarded  by  law  no  other  day 
can  for  a  moment  come  into  competition  with 
the  Christian  Sabbath. 

f.  Both  the  septenary  and  the  annual  Sabbaths 
of  the  Jewish  dispensation  were  superseded  at 
the  resurrection,  the  one  by  displacement,  the 
other  by  fulfillment  of  its  f orelooking  sacrificial 
significance,  and  both  by  the  supersession  of  the 


THE  SABBATH.  143 

dispensation  to  which  they  belonged ;  and  the 
relative  first  day  became  the  ever-recurring  and 
only  Sabbath  of  the  Church  of  the  risen  Christ. 

g.  The  Christian  Sabbath,  while  it  necessarily 
drops  the  special  reasons  underlying  the  Hebrew 
economy,  retains  the  primal  reason  with  the 
primal  day,  and  adds  the  commemoration  of  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead. 

A.  The  Sunday-Sabbath,  being  the  true  and 
universal  Sabbath,  falls  under  the  full  force  and 
authority  of  the  fourth  commandment. 

i.  The  fourth  commandment  being  the  nexus 
which  joins  the  two  tables  into  a  whole  and  per- 
fect law,  to  secularize  the  sacred  day  for  business 
or  dissipative  pleasure  is,  practically,  as  far  as  the 
transgressor's  influence  extends,  to  annul  the  com- 
mandment and  repeal  the  Decalogue. 

j.  "Sunday"  being  a  designation  given  by 
idolaters  to  the  perverted  primeval  worship-day, 
should  no  longer  be  used  by  Christians.  The 
day  which  the  Lord  hath  made  should  bear  its 
own  name,  Sabbath,  and  be  kept  holy  by  all  who 
fear  God  and  love  men. 

Tc.  The    resurrection    of    our  Lord,   without 


144  THE  SABBATH. 

which  the  scheme  of  redemption  would  have 
proved  abortive  through  incompleteness,  is  not 
now,  and  is  destined  never  to  be,  suitably  and 
continuously  commemorated  otherwise  than  by 
the  reverent  and  worshipful  keeping  of  the 
Lord's-day. 

I.  The  knowledge  of  God  in  creation  and  re- 
demption would  cease  in  the  earth  if  the  Chris- 
tian Sabbath  were  to  fall  into  universal  desuetude. 

We  have  reached  what,  we  respectfully  submit, 
may  justly  be  regarded  as  a  scriptural,  historic, 
philosophical,  and  philological  DEMONSTRATION. 
If  any  insist  on  a  mathematical  demonstration  as 
well  they  are  referred  to  Dr.  Akers's  Biblical 
Chronology,  pp.  33-40,  where  they  will  find  all 
the  elements  of  the  problem,  and  may  work  it 
out  for  themselves.  By  this  process  they  will  be 
carried  to  the  same  conclusion ;  namely,  that  Sun- 
day was  the  primeval  Sabbath,  which  was  re- 
clothed  with  authority  at  the  resurrection  of  the 
Lord. 


THE  SABBATH.  145 


CHAPTER   IX. 
OPINIONS  OF  WISE  MEN. 

" Y  main  aim  has  been  to  present  a  conclusive 
scriptural  argument.  Volumes  could  be 
filled  with  the  opinions  of  the  wisest  and  best  of 
men — statesmen,  jurists,  legislators,  philosophers, 
and  philanthropists — with  respect  to  the  necessity 
and  benefits  of  the  Sabbath.  I  shall  content  my- 
self with  a  very  few  samples,  taken  here  and 
there  from  among  a  great  number  within  easy 
reach. 

Justice  McLean  said:  "Where  there  is  no 
Christian  Sabbath  there  is  no  Christian  morality, 
and,  without  this,  free  institutions  cannot  long  be 
sustained," 

Governor  Ellsworth,  of  Connecticut,  in  a 
message  to  the  Legislature,  said  :  "  The  Christian 

religion  owes  its  extension,  and  its  power  over 
10 


146  THE  SABBATH. 

the  consciences  of  men,  to  the  institution  and 
influence  of  the  Sabbath." 

Chief  Justice  Story,  in  an  inaugural  address  at 
Harvard,  said :  "  It  is  one  of  the  beautiful  boasts 
of  our  municipal  jurisprudence  that  Christianity 
is  a  part  of  the  common  law.  .  .  .  There  never 
has  been  a  period  in  which  the  common  law  did 
not  recognize  Christianity  as  lying  at  its  founda- 
tion." 

Chancellor  Kent  said :  "  Christianity,  in  its 
enlarged  sense,  as  a  religion  revealed  and  taught 
in  the  Bible,  is  not  unknown  to  our  law.  The 
statute  for  preventing  immorality  consecrates  the 
first  day  of  the  week  as  holy  time,  and  considers 
the  violation  of  it  immoral." 

Dr.  layman  JBeecher  said :  "  By  the  grace  of 
God  the  members  of  this  Union  [the  United 
States]  will  exercise  their  rights  of  citizenship 
for  the  preservation  of  th&  Sabbath  to  their 
families  and  their  beloved  country,  unangered 
and  unawed." 

8.  J.  Buckingham  said :  It  "  was  designed  by 
a  wise  and  beneficent  Deity  to  give  to  his  creat- 
ures that  expansion  of  heart,  and  cheerfulness 


THE  SABBATH.  147 

of  mind,  and  serene  and  satisfactory  enjoyment 
of  body  which  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  as 
a  day  of  rest  brings  to  all." 

De  Tocquemlle  said :  "  France  must  have  your 
[American]  Sabbath  or  she  is  ruined." 

Hon.  George  Bancroft,  America's  most  emi- 
nent historian,  said :  "  Certainly  our  great  united 
Commonwealth  is  the  child  of  Christianity.  It 
may  with  equal  truth  be  asserted  that  modern 
civilization  sprang  into  life  with  our  religion ; 
and  faith  in  its  principles  is  the  life-boat  on 
which  humanity  has  at  divers  times  escaped  the 
most  threatening  perils." 

Voltaire  said  (for  contrast) :  "  There  is  no 
hope  of  destroying  the  Christian  religion  so  long 
as  the  Christian  Sabbath  is  acknowledged  and 
kept  by  men  as  a  sacred  day." 

F.  W.  Robertson — who  will  not  be  suspected 
of  austerity,  or  of  that  gorgon  of  a  fool's  imag- 
ination, "Puritanism,"  said:  "I  am  more  and 
more  sure  by  experience  that  the  reason  for  the 
observation  of  the  Sabbath  lies  deep  in  the  ever- 
lasting necessities  of  human  nature,  and  that,  as 
long  as  man  is  man,  the  blessedness  of  keeping 


148  THE  SABBATH. 

it,  not  as  a  day  of  bodily  rest  only,  but  as  a  day 
of  spiritual  rest,  will  never  be  annulled  .  .  .  for 
the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man." 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  said :  "  The  Sunday  is 
the  core  of  our  civilization." 

Dr.  Isaac  Taylor  said :  "  I  am  prepared  to 
affirm  that  the  Sabbath  is  the  best  of  all  means 
of  refreshment  to  the  mere  intellect." 

Rev.  Wilbur  F.  Crafts,  A.M. — author  of  a 
book  suffocatingly  full  of  facts  and  figures,  a 
rich  thesaurus  of  information  on  this  subject, 
says :  "  Marriage  and  the  Sabbath  were  the  Jacin 
and  Boaz  of  man's  Edenic  temple,  and  they  re- 
main the  two  chief  pillars  of  his  home  to-day." 

Coleridge  said :  "  I  feel  as  if  God  in  giving 
the  Sabbath  had  given  fifty-two  springs  in  the 
year." 

Opinions  of  laboring  men  are  equally  explicit. 
Go  where  you  will  to  inquire,  and  you  will  find 
all  intelligent  laboring  men  (and  most  unintelli- 
gent) in  favor  of  a  civil  Sabbath  when  they  come 
to  understand  its  design.  The  most  thoughtful 
among  them  see  that  the  civil  Sabbath — the 
toiler's  rest-day — can  be  maintained  with  cer- 


THE  SABBATH.  149 

tainty  no  longer  than  the  day  is  recognized  as 
resting  on  the  warrant  of  a  divine  law.  Hence 
a  number  of  bright,  argumentative,  and  very 
instructive  books,  and  many  tracts,  in  defense  of 
the  Christian  Sabbath,  have  been  written  by 
working-men.  While  such  eminent  persons  as 
Gladstone,  Disraeli,  the  Earl  of  Shaf tesbury,  and 
many  others  only  less  eminent,  have  ably  de- 
fended the  laboring  class  against  the  insidious 
attempts  of  greed  and  atheism  to  rob  them  of 
their  one  precious  day  of  rest,  home,  and  culture, 
they  have  bravely  risen  in  England  to  defend 
themselves.  They  know  full  well  that  when  the 
sense  of  religious  obligation  fades  out  the  day 
which  many  wTish  to  devote  to  pleasure  will  be 
demanded  of  them  for  toil.  The  scheme  to 
annul  the  Sabbath  is  as  crafty  as  it  is  cruel,  as  to 
the  leading  spirits ;  but  thousands  are  unwittingly 
drawn  into  it  by  the  most  specious  sophistries, 
which  the  want  of  accurate  information  and  dis- 
ciplined thought  makes  the  self -harming  victims 
too  inexpert  to  detect. 

There  are  laborers  who  dream  that  if  all  Sab- 
bath restrictions  were  repealed  they  would  still 


150  THE  SABBATH. 

enjoy  a  weekly  holiday.  This  is  probably  a  delu- 
sion. Already,  against  law  and  without  necessity, 
a  million  of  men  are  deprived  of  Sabbath  by  the 
railroad  system ;  many  thousands  by  the  pleaded 
exigences  of  pleasure  resorts ;  a  large  number  by 
the  milk  business ;  and,  where  no  civil  Sabbath 
prevents,  another  large  number  by  public  shows, 
street-cars,  saloons,  and  tobacconists'  stalls.  The 
change  in  California  is  too  recent  to  have  yielded 
its  full  crop  of  evil  fruits.  The  repeal  of  our 
Sabbath  law  was  a  grim  and  ghastly  bid  for  the 
votes  of  the  slums  and  the  agents  of  demoraliza- 
tion. But  what  shall  hinder  now  if  employers 
begin  to  demand  seven  days  of  toil  in  the  week  ? 
Work  or  starve  will  be  the  alternative.  The 
employed  classes  have  no  legal  protection  against 
the  exactions  of  greed  and  the  brutality  of  tyran- 
nous power. 

Contrasts  of  average  condition  as  between 
Sabbath-keepers  and  Sabbath-breakers  constitute 
an  argument  in  favor  of  a  civil  Sabbath.  Ex- 
treme comparisons  of  the  worst  with  the  best  are 
neither  just  nor  manly.  No  man  of  habitual 
observation  will  attempt  to  deny  that  Sabbath- 


THE  SABBATH.  151 

keepers  average  better  than  Sabbath-breakers  of 
the  same  class.  The  very  condition  of  filth  and 
squalor  which  is  pleaded  to  justify,  or  at  least 
extenuate,  Sunday  excursions,  pic-nics,  and  thea- 
ters, grows  largely  out  of  Sabbath  dissipation  and 
the  vices  to  which  it  leads.  For  order,  neatness, 
thrift,  and  domestic  comfort,  compare  dozen  with 
dozen,  or  thousand  with  thousand,  as  you  find 
them,  and  the  contrast  will  furnish  a  cogent  rea- 
son for  the  proper  keeping  of  the  Lord's-day.  The 
Sabbath  is  pre-eminently  the  poor  man's  day, 
yet  not  in  so  exclusive  a  sense  that  the  rich,  bur- 
dened with  the  care  of  riches  and  dependent  on 
the  conscience-culture  of  many  servants,  do  not 
also  need  a  day  of  respite  for  themselves  and  of 
moral  and  religious  uplifting  for  their  employes. 


152  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  GROUNDS  AND  CLAIMS  OF  A  CIVIL  SABBATH. 

rpHE  right  to  legislate  a  civil  Sabbath  into 
JL  being,  and  guard  it  against  the  conscience- 
less rapacity  of  bad  men  in  bad  businesses,  is  one 
feature  of  the  right  of  self -protection  which 
States  as  well  as  individuals  enjoy.  Indeed,  the 
State's  right  is  paramount,  inasmuch  as  it  engages 
to  protect  the  individual,  which  engagement  it 
cannot  fulfill  without  protecting  itself.  All  the 
States  of  the  Union,  save  California,  now  assert 
and  maintain  the  right  under  view.  It  is  also 
fully  recognized  in  England,  and,  in  its  essence, 
in  all  Christianly  civilized  countries.  Such  is  the 
fact.  Let  us  briefly  attend  to  what  wise  men  say 
of  the  underlying  reasons : 

Count  Montalembert,  a  French  statesman,  said : 
"  London  is  kept  in  order  by  a  garrison  of  three 
small  battalions  and  two  squadrons;  while  to 


THE  SABBATH.  153 

control  the  capital  of  France,  which  is  half  the 
size,  forty  thousand  troops  of  the  line  and  sixty 
thousand  national  guards  are  necessary.  But  the 
stranger  who  arrives  in  London  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, when  he  sees  every  thing  of  commerce  sus- 
pended in  that  gigantic  capital  in  obedience  to 
God ;  when,  in  that  colossal  business,  he  finds 
silence  and  repose  scarcely  interrupted  by  the 
bells  which  call  to  prayer,  and  the  immense 
crowd  on  their  way  to  church,  then  his  astonish- 
ment ceases." 

La  Place  wrote :  "  I  have  lived  long  enough  to 
know,  what  at  one  time  I  did  not  believe,  that  no 
society  can  be  upheld  in  happiness  and  honor 
without  the  sentiments  of  religion." 

Senator  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  said :  "  I  most 
sincerely  approve  of  the  civil  institution  of  the 
Sabbath.  I  heartily  desire  to  see  its  observance 
under  statute  law." 

Joseph  Cook  said  :  "  The  enemies  of  Sunday 
in  a  republic  are  the  enemies  of  the  poor  man 
and  of  the  political  sanity  of  the  community  at 
large." 

Justice  "Woodward  said  of   Sunday:    "The 


154  THE  SABBATH. 

common  law  adopted  it  along  with  Christianity, 
of  which  it  is  one  of  the  bulwarks." 

Ex-Chief  Justice  Agnew  recently  said :  "  This 
brings  us  to  the  Sabbath,  essential  to  the  welfare 
of  man  and  an  indispensable  means  of  instruc- 
tion. In  this  we  see  a  necessary  union  of  relig- 
ious and  civil  life,  a  necessity  which  rightfully 
demands  the  power  of  the  civil  law,  that  branch 
termed  the  police  power  of  the  State." 

In  an  able  and  spirited  address  delivered  before 
a  law  and  order  mass-meeting  in  the  Odeon,  Cin- 
cinnati, March  29,  last  year,  Judge  M.  B.  Hagans 
made  a  powerful  appeal  for  the  enforcement  of 
the  civil  Sabbath  law.  We  wish  we  could  give 
space  for  the  entire  address ;  but  a  few  extracts 
must  suffice.  Of  the  Sunday-Sabbath  law  the 
Judge  says :  "  It  is  a  question  which  is  grounded 
upon  the  needs  of  society  and  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  the  State.  It  is  essentially  a  civil  regu- 
lation made  for  the  government  of  man  as  a 
member  of  society.  It  is  not,  therefore,  extrava- 
gant to  declare  that  the  day  set  apart  as  a  day  of 
rest  from  secular  employment  is  the  American 
Sabbath.  These  laws  are  founded  on  the  needs 


THE  SABBATH.  155 

of  men  for  a  day  of  rest,  and  are  therefore  jus- 
tified by  the  public  policy  of  the  State.  Nor  has 
their  constitutionality  ever  been  questioned  by 
any  court  anywhere,  as  I  remember,  except  early 
in  the  history  of  California ;  but  since,  in  four 
cases,  the  law  in  that  State  has  been  uniformly 
upheld  and  approved,  if  not  enforced.  It  has 
always  and  every-where  been  held  that  such  laws 
are  within  the  constitutional  powers  of  the  Legis- 
lature." 

Judge  Allen  G.  Thurman,  the  eminent  states- 
man and  jurist  of  Ohio,  in  a  very  recent  decision, 
uses  language  equally  clear  and  strong,  thus : 

"  We  have  no  union  of  Church  and  State, 
nor  has  our  Government  ever  been  vested  with 
authority  to  enforce  any  religious  observance 
simply  because  it  is  religious.  Of  course  it  is 
no  objection,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  high 
recommendation,  to  a  legislative  enactment,  based 
on  justice  or  public  policy,  that  it  is  found  to 
coincide  with  the  precepts  of  a  pure  religion  ; 
but  the  fact  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  power 
to  make  the  law  rests  in  the  legislative  control 
over  things  temporal,  and  not  over  things 


156  THE  SABBATH. 

spiritual.  Thus  the  statute  upon  which  the  de- 
fendant relies,  prohibiting  common  labor  on  the 
Sabbath,  could  not  stand  for  a  moment  as  a  law 
of  this  State  if  its  sole  foundation  was  the  Chris- 
tian duty  of  keeping  that  day  holy  and  its  sole  mo- 
tive to  enforce  the  observance  of  that  duty.  For 
no  power  over  things  merely  spiritual  has  ever 
been  delegated  to  the  Government,  while  any 
preference  of  one  religion  over  another  which  the' 
statute  would  give  upon  the  above  hypothesis  is 
directly  prohibited  by  the  Constitution.  Acts 
evil  in  their  nature,  or  dangerous  to  the  public 
welfare,  may  be  forbidden  and  punished,  though 
sanctioned  by  one  religion  and  prohibited  by  an- 
other ;  but  this  creates  no  preference  whatever, 
for  they  would  be  equally  forbidden  and  pun- 
ished if  all  religions  permitted  them.  Thus,  no 
plea  of  his  religion  could  shield  a  murderer,  rav- 
isher,  or  bigamist ;  for  the  community  would  be 
at  the  mercy  of  superstition  if  such  crimes  as 
these  could  be  committed  with  impunity  because 
sanctioned  by  some  religious  delusion." 

"  We  are,  then,  to  regard  the  statute  under 
consideration  as  a  mere  municipal  or  police  regu- 


THE  SABBATH.  157 

lation,  whose  validity  is  neither  strengthened  nor 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  the  day  of  rest  it  en- 
joins is  the  Sabbath  day.  Wisdom  requires  that 
men  should  refrain  from  labor  at  least  one  day  in 
seven,  and  the  advantages  of  having  the  day  of  rest 
fixed,  and  so  fixed  as  to  happen  at  regularly  re- 
curring intervals,  are  too  obvious  to  be  over- 
looked. It  was  within  the  constitutional  compe- 
tency of  the  General  Assembly  to  require  this 
cessation  of  labor  and  to  name  the  day  of  rest. 
It  did  so  by  the  act  referred  to,  and,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  feeling  of  a  majority  of  the  people, 
the  Christian  Sabbath  was  very  properly  selected. 
But,  regarded  merely  as  an  exertion  of  legislative 
authority,  the  act  would  have  had  neither  more 
nor  less  validity  had  any  other  day  been  adopted." 
Bloom  vs.  Kichards.  2d  O.  S.  391  and  392. 

The  distinguished  jurist  also  quotes  with  ap- 
probation the  following  from  Specht  vs.  The 
Commonwealth,  3  Barr,  312 : 

"All  agree  that  to  the  well-being  of  society 
periods  of  rest  are  absolutely  necessary.  To  be 
productive  of  the  required  advantage  these 
periods  must  recur  at  stated  intervals,  so  that  the 


158  THE  SABBATH. 

mass  of  which  the  community  is  composed  may 
enjoy  a  respite  from  labor  at  the  same  time. 
They  may  be  established  by  common  consent, 
or,  as  is  conceded,  the  legislative  power  of  the 
State  may,  without  impropriety,  interfere  to  fix 
the  time  of  their  stated  return  and  enforce 
obedience  to  the  direction.  When  this  happens 
some  one  day  must  be  selected,  and  it  has  been 
said  the  round  of  the  week  presents  none  which, ' 
being  preferred,  might  not  be  regarded  as  favor- 
ing some  one  of  the  numerous  religious  sects 
into  which  mankind  are  divided.  In  a  Christian 
community,  where  a  very  large  majority  of  the 
people  celebrate  the  first  day  of  the  week  as  their 
chosen  period  of  rest  from  labor,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  that  day  should  have  received  the 
legislative  sanction ;  and,  as  it  is  also  devoted  to 
religious  observances,  we  are  prepared  to  esti- 
mate the  reason  why  the  statute  should  speak  of 
it  as  the  Lord's  day,  and  denominate  the  infrac- 
tion of  its  legalized  rest  a  profanation.  Yet  this 
does  not  change  the  character  of  the  enactment. 
It  is  still,  essentially,  but  a  civil  regulation  made 
for  the  government  of  man  as  a  member  of 


THE  SABBATH.  159 

society.  The  Court  further  proceeds  to  show 
that  the  statute  interferes  with  no  man's  con- 
science, compels  no  religious  observances, '  enters 
upon  no  discussion  of  rival  claims  of  the  first 
and  seventh  days  of  the  week,  treats  no  religious 
doctrine  as  paramount  in  the  State,'  and  gives 
no  preference  to  any  sect ;  that  '  the  selection  of 
the  day  of  rest  is  but  a  question  of  expediency,' 
and  that  the  adoption  of  Sunday  confers  'no 
superior  religious  position  upon  those  who  wor- 
ship upon  that  day.' '! 

Judge  Hagans,  after  quoting  Judge  Thurman, 
proceeds  thus : 

"  Now,  what  is  this  '  public  policy,'  founded 
on  the  well-being  of  society,  which  underlies  and 
justifies  this  legislation?  I  cannot  state  the 
multitude  of  reasons.  One  is,  however,  the 
necessity  of  periodical  seasons  of  rest.  All  hu- 
man experience  demonstrates  that  men  require  it, 
and  that  one  day  in  seven  is  the  best  period  for 
it.  The  tremendous  strain  of  labor  and  business, 
the  cares,  peplexities  and  turmoil  of  trade,  the 
stretch  of  mind  and  body  in  digging,  delving, 
building,  buying  and  selling,  exchanging,  thinking 


160  THE  SABBATH. 

and  planning,  would  wear  out  and  destroy  mind 
and  body  unless  these  regularly  recurring  periods 
of  rest  are  observed.  Some  men  may  bear  the 
strain  without  serious  injury,  possibly,  but  the 
exception  only  proves  the  rule.  Thus  these  laws 
are  at  once  the  plea  and  refuge  of  labor  in  all 
lands  and  in  all  ages.  The  civil  Sabbath  is  the 
people's  day  !  Resting  one  day  in  seven  insures 
recuperation  of  mind  and  body,  so  that  every ' 
citizen  is  at  his  best  to  contribute  to  the  general 
prosperity  and  success  of  the  State,  both  in  peace 
and  war — in  peace,  for  the  highest  and  best  re- 
sults in  the  vast  and  complicated  transactions 
and  duties  of  modern  civilization ;  in  war,  for 
the  stalwart  defense  of  the  State." 

Then,  addressing  himself  to  those  who  seek  to 
amend  the  law,  he  makes  this  appeal : 

"  Come,  let  us  reason  together.  Both  you  and 
your  families,  your  employes  and  the  public  will 
be  all  the  better  off  in  mind,  body,  and  estate, 
by  a  cessation  from  your  secular  pursuits  on  the 
civil  Sabbath  and  devoting  its  hours  to  rest  and 
recreation  that  does  not  infringe  on  the  rights  of 
others — rest  from  cankering  care;  rest  from 


THE  SABBATH.  161 

the  wearing  perplexities  of  business ;  rest  from 
the  ceaseless  strife  of  the  market  and  the  anxious* 
collisions  of  shrewdness  and  competition ;  rest 
from  the  swinging  of  the  hammer,  the  shoving 
of  the  plane,  the  guiding  of  the  plow,  and  the 
roar  of  trade  in  all  its  multitudinous  forms ;  rest 
from  the  weariness  of  the  desk  and  the  office ; 
rest  in  the  bosom  of  your  families  and  amid  the 
sanctities  of  the  hearth-stone,  where  the  sweet 
incense  of  communion  shall  smoke  on  the  home 
altar  forever.  Such  a  day  will  be  a  vindication 
of  the  divine  philosophy  of  the  apothegm, 
'  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  the  Sabbath.' " 

The  civil  Sabbath  draws  strong  collateral  sup- 
port from  the  vast  moral  and  educational  advan- 
tages inseparably  associated  with  an  orderly  Sab- 
bath. These  tend  to  uplift  and  ennoble  citizens 
and  thereby  benefit  the  State.  The  measure  of 
authentic  manhood  is  the  expansion  and  strength 
of  the  moral  nature.  The  Sabbath  law  is  written 
in  the  frame  of  beasts,  the  soil  we  till,  the  con- 
stitution of  steel  and  iron,  brass  and  wood,  mus- 
cle and  intellect ;  but  pre-eminently  in  conscience 
11 


162  THE  SABBATH. 

and  will.     Lord   Macaulay,  discussing  the  ten- 
rhour  bill  before  the  British  House  of  Commons, 
said: 

"  The  natural  difference  between  Campagnia 
and  Spitzenbergen  is  trifling  when  compared  with 
the  difference  between  a  country  inhabited  by  men 
full  of  mental  and  bodily  vigor,  and  a  country  in- 
habited by  men  sunk  in  bodily  and  mental  decrep- 
itude. Therefore  it  is  we  are  not  poorer,  but  richer,  - 
because  we  have  in  many  ages  rested  one  day  in 
seven.  That  day  is  not  lost.  While  industry  is 
suspended,  while  the  plow  lies  in  the  furrow, 
while  the  exchange  is  silent,  while  no  smoke  as- 
cends from  the  factory,  a  process  is  going  on 
quite  as  important  to  the  wealth  of  nations  as 
any  process  which  is  performed  on  more  busy 
days.  Now  the  machine  of  machines,  the  ma- 
chine compared  with  which  all  the  contrivances 
of  the  Watts  and  the  Arkwrights  are  worthless, 
is  repairing  and  winding  up,  so  that  he  returns 
to  his  labors  on  the  Monday  with  clearer  intel- 
lect, wyith  livelier  spirits,  with  renewed  corporeal 
vigor." 

It  is  scientifically  demonstrable  that  on  a  work- 


THE  SABBATH.  163 

ing  day  we  give  out  more  vitality  than  we  take 
in.  On  a  rest-day  we  take  in  more  than  we  give 
out,  and  so  restore  and  maintain  the  condition  of 
prolonged  and  vigorous  life. 

I  need  not  burden  these  pages  with  further 
quotations.  A  civil  Sabbath  law,  to  fully  answer 
its  beneficent  intent,  should  close  the  doors  of 
dissipation  and  demoralization,  such  as  the  saloon, 
the  dance-house,  the  house  of  the  strange  woman, 
and  every  place  admittedly  corrupting  and  de- 
structive to  health  and  public  morals.  If  a  gov- 
ernment can  close  saloons  on  election  it  can 
close  them  on  Sabbath.  Who  oppose  such  a  law  ? 
Possibly  many  of  the  unthinking  would  rank 
themselves  with  the  opposition  without  purpose 
or  conviction.  But,  mainly,  the  angry  and  organ- 
ized opponents  will  be  found  among  the  keepers 
of  Sunday  resorts,  the  owners  of  lines  of  Sunday 
travel,  saloon-keepers,  wine-makers,  distillers,  gam- 
blers, pickpockets,  courtesans,  pimps,  and  thieves 
in  general.  Let  me  quote  a  piece  of  sarcasm,  as 
true  as  terrible,  from  an  eloquent  address  de- 
livered in  Cincinnati  in  March  last  year,  by  Kev. 
M.  C.  Lock  wood: 


164  THE  SABBATH. 

"We  have  heard  men  trying  to  rouse  race 
prejudices,  and  in  the  name  of  the  German  peo- 
ple asking  for  a  German  Sunday.  It  is  the 
clamor  of  anarchists ;  I  see  the  red  cap  of  Jacobin- 
ism above  it  all.  Do  you  want  the  German 
Sunday,  working-men  of  America  ?  Have  a  Ger- 
man Sunday  and  we  shall  need  a  German  gov- 
ernment. We  must  have  the  authority  of  mili- 
tary, as  the  authority  of  law  these  anarchists 
do  not  and  will  not  respect.  Do  you  want  a 
German  Sunday  ?  Ask  the  soap-boilers,  leather- 
dressers,  molders,  porcelain  and  glass-makers,  en- 
gravers, and  butchers  of  Germany.  Say,  Myn- 
heer Turner,  why  did  you  not  telegraph  to 
the  laborers  in  convention  held  at  Berlin  a  few 
weeks  ago  and  secure  their  congratulations  that 
you  expected  to  win  a  German  Sunday  for  them 
in  America  ?  Do  you  know  all  that  a  German 
Sunday  means  for  these  ?  Read  their  resolutions 
condemning  Sunday  wrork,  and  asking  that  it  be 
prohibited  by  law.  They  are  weary  of  Sunday 
work.  Their  cry  has  gone  up  through  all  the 
earth.  They  wrant  their  Sunday  rest,  and  under 
an  absolute  reign  of  labor  over  the  whole  realm 


THE  SABBATH.  165 

of  their  lives  they  suffer  under  as  great  a  wrong 
as  ever  man  has  borne. 

"  Who  are  these  philanthropists  clamoring  for 
the  poor  working-men  ?  The  railroad  corpora- 
tions, working  their  hands  sixteen  hours  a  day,  at 
$1  75  per  day,  seven  days  in  the  week.  These  want 
the  poor  working-man  to  have  his  Sunday  recrea- 
tion ;  and  the  theater  manager,  one  of  the  sort 
that,  Sunday,  in  this  city  put  a  little  child  on  the 
stage,  of  tender  years,  within  a  few  hours  of  her 
long  journey  from  Chicago,  to  dance  and  go 
through  her  performance,  all  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor  working-men.  And  the  saloon-keepers, 
working  their  barkeepers,  on  slender  pay,  from 
daylight  until  after  midnight,  giving  them  little 
more  than  four  or  five  hours  a  night  for  sleep — 
these  are  anxious  about  the  poor  working-men. 
As  anxious  as  a  politician  or  a  party  newspaper 
round  about  election  times — while  one  inside 
of  two  months  will  vote  under  the  instruction  of 
the  corporation  lobby,  and  the  other  will  write 
long  editorials  against  trades-unions  the  rest  of 
the  years;  but  we  preachers,  pietists,  pharisees, 
the  disciples  of  the  Nazarene  Carpenter,  we  want 


166  THE  SABBATH. 

to  deprive  the  poor  working-man  of  his  c  moral 
education  ! '  Ah,  what  moral  education — mar- 
velously  moral !  O  the  diabolical  cant,  the  rank- 
smelling  hypocrisy,  the  hell-generated  lying  as 
to  the  moral  education  of  our  stage! 

"  Go  and  get  it  of  a  Langtry  and  Freddie,  of  a 
Bernhardt,  of  a  Neilson.  Get  a  moral  education 
of  a  Camille,  '  Moths  '  and  '  Kit,  the  Arkansas 
Traveler.'  Get  it  from  the  ballet  and  female 
minstrels.  Why,  actors  are  laughing  in  their 
sleeves,  and  wink  when  they  borrow  the  phrase. 
One  can  get  as  good  a  moral  education  in  a  brothel 
as  in  the  average  theater.  Well,  all  these  railroad 
corporations,  saloon-keepers,  theater  managers, 
and  beer  brewers  insist  that  their  cars  shall  be 
crowded,  saloons  filled  and  theaters  packed,  all 
for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  working-man  and  his 
toil-worn  family." 

The  benevolent  interest  of  the  agents  of  de- 
moralization in  the  happiness  of  the  poor  "  work- 
ing-man" is  like  that  of  the  tender-hearted 
Apache  who  kindly  proposes  to  lift  from  the 
object  of  his  solicitude  the  burden  of  his  scalp. 

A  civil  Sabbath  law  should  be  so  framed  as  to 


THE  SABBATH.  167 

make  it  legally  impossible  for  one  man  or  class 
to  compel  another  man  or  class  to  labor.  With- 
out this,  greed  and  selfish  pleasure-seeking  will 
force  hundreds  and  thousands  to  work  or  starve. 
No  manly  man,  when  once  made  to  see  the  rela- 
tion which  his  recreation  sustains  to  others1  toil, 
will  willfully  persist  in  seeking  enjoyment  at  the 
expense  of  those  who  must  work  seven  days  in  a 
week  to  furnish  the  means  of  it. 

The  ditty  of  employers  to  the  employed  has  an 
important  relation  to  the  Sabbath  law.  The 
money  craze  of  the  present  century,  especially 
in  America,  is  alarming.  The  idolatry  of  covet- 
ousness  is  not  a  new  thing  under  the  sun  ;  but 
the  rapidity  of  amassment  and  the  insane  ambi- 
tion to  amass  are  marked  phenomena  of  the  in- 
tense life  we  are  living.  Every  business  must 
be  driven  at  cost  of  comfort,  health,  and  life,  if 
need  be.  As  yet  one  day  in  seven  is  grudgingly 
given  to  such  workman  as  are  not  actively  con- 
nected with  the  vastly  multiplied  agencies  of 
Sabbath  desecration.  Railroads,  steamers,  all 
modes  of  public  conveyance,  put  a  premium 
upon  Sabbath-breaking  by  offering  excursion 


168  TEE  SABBATH. 

rates  on  the  holy  day ;  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
are  obliged  to  work  on  that  day  or  sacrifice  place 
and  bread. 

Many  who  enjoy  release  from  toil  plead  with 
plausibility  that  they  need  and  must  have  recre- 
ation, and  Sabbath  is  the  only  day  which  affords 
the  requisite  opportunity.  Their  notions  of 
"  recreation  "  are  often  contravening  to  the  laws 
of  health ;  but  the  plea  finds  ground  in  the 
severe  confinement  of  the  week,  often  carried 
late  into  Saturday  night.  It  must  be  apparent 
to  a  man  who  thinks,  that  every  useful  branch  of 
trade  and  business  would  enjoy  the  same  average 
prosperity  if  less  hours  of  toil  were  exacted.  In 
England,  on  a  wide  scale,  Saturday  afternoon  (a 
full-measured,  honest  afternoon)  is  given  to  the 
employed  classes  in  shops  and  stores.  Thus  in- 
door laborers  are  refreshed  and  are  deprived  of 
every  reasonable  pretext  for  desecrating  the  Sab- 
bath or  embarrassing  the  operation  of  a  Sabbath 
law. 

Of  all  countries  America  most  needs  a  well- 
kept  Sabbath,  and,  of  all  countries,  can  best 
afford  the  requisite  relief  to  her  laboring  people. 


THE  SABBATH.  169 

Under  a  government  as  free  as  ours,  with  so 
wide  a  distribution  of  the  suffrage,  there  lodges 
with  the  masses  a  tremendous  power  of  self- 
preservation  or  self-destruction.  It  needs  only  a 
majority  of  conscienceless  voters  to  overturn  the 
Government  and  destroy  the  liberties  which  have 
cost  so  dear.  Every  thing  depends  on  conscience- 
power,  and  that  on  conscience-culture.  But 
there  can  be  no  general  and  adequate  conscience- 
culture  without  a  periodic  day  set  apart  and 
guarded  for  this  high  purpose.  In  a  land  of  vast, 
varied,  virgin  resources — a  land  of  plenty  in  a 
sense  unknown  to  other  lands — a  Saturday  half- 
holiday  can  well  be  afforded.  There  are  impreg- 
nable reasons  for  assuming  that  nothing  would 
be  lost  in  the  aggregate  products  of  industry  by 
this  beneficent  arrangement.  Let  Christian  em- 
ployers lead  off,  and  Christian  and  temperance 
employes  prudently  demand  such  a  modification 
of  the  labor  system,  and  it  will  erelong  be  granted. 
Then  let  the  civil  Sabbath  be  respected  for  its 
proper  uses  and  guarded  against  demoralizing 
abuses. 


170  THE  SABBATH. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
PKEVALENT  ABUSES  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

THE  growing  irreverence  for  the  Sabbath  is 
to  be  ascribed,  in  a  large  degree,  to  the  ill 
use  made  of  it  by  its  professed  friends.  I  write 
this  sentence  advisedly  and  with  sorrow,  after  ex- 
tended observation.  The  readiness  and  reckless- 
ness with  which  professedly  Christian  people 
turn  the  day  into  a  time  of  half  business,  pleas- 
ure, or  mere  animal  rest,  indicates  great  irrever- 
ence toward  the  divine  law  or  great  ignorance 
of  its  claims.  The  day  is  secularized  for  pleasure 
or  gain  for  reasons  so  frivolous  and  impertinent 
as  to  excite  the  contempt  of  sensible  men  of  the 
world. 

A  party  of  municipal  and  State  officials  in 
Yosemite  Valley  were  planning  to  go  out  ma 
Glacier  Point  on  Sabbath.  When  remonstrated 
with  they  said  they  knew  it  was  not  entirely 


THE   SABBATH.  171 

right,  but  they  could  worship  so  amid  the  grand 
scenery !  Men  of  the  world  laugh  at  such 
puerility,  and  well  they  may.  These  men  were 
under  obligation,  as  civil  officers,  to  treat  with 
respect  the  Sabbath  sentiment  of  the  American 
people  if  they  had  no  personal  regard  for  the 
divine  institute.  Square-shouldered  sinning,  law 
or  no  law,  would  have  been  less  nauseating  and 
less  a  mockery  of  common  sense. 

A  young  church  member  took  stage  from 
San  Jose  to  San  Francisco  on  Sabbath,  making  a 
journey  of  fifty-one  miles,  for  the  assigned 
reason  that  it  would  have  cost  him  a  dollar  and  a 
half  [of  the  Lord-of-the-Sabbath's  money!]  to 
stay  till  Monday. 

Two  ladies  wished  to  ride  into  the  country  on 
the  holy  day,  but  had  faint  scruples  of  con- 
science, and  especially  feared  that  their  pastors 
(they  belonged  to  different  churches)  would  re- 
buke them.  Happily  they  bethought  them  that 
there  was  a  melodeon  at  the  house  they  wished 
to  visit.  So  they  made  the  ride  of  twelve  miles, 
ate  a  chicken  dinner,  talked,  laughed,  joked, 
mongered  news,  had  a  good  time,  and  then  sang 


172  THE  SABBATH. 

two  Sunday-school  songs  to  make  it  right  with 
their  consciences  and  the  Lord ! 

A  camp-meeting  committee,  possessed  of  a 
contract  power  to  prevent  the  running  of  Sunday 
trains,  deliberately  voted  to  run  extra  trains  on 
the  sacred  day,  and  charge  forty  cents  extra  the 
round  trip  as  reveKmoo*  to  the  ground.  Some  of 
the  reasons  urged  in  extenuation  were  these: 
1.  So  many  pious  people  coiild  not  come  from 
the  city  [full  of  needy  and  half -empty  churches] 
to  the  camp  on  any  other  day.  2.  They  had 
eight  policemen  to  preserve  order  [among  these 
devout  souls !]  3.  They  sang  hymns  on  the  way. 
4.  And — finally — they  ran  Sunday  trains  six  years 
before,  a  crowd  of  roughs  came  out  from  the  city, 
and  two  of  them  were  converted.  Did  not  that 
prove  that  God  approbated  the  Sunday  train? 

The  devil  must  be  delighted  with  such  logic. 
When  told  of  two  young  men  who  fell  under 
deep  conviction  while  stealing  watermelons,  and 
both  were  converted,  which  of  course  proved 
that  stealing  melons  is  a  valuable  means  of  grace, 
they  appeared  to  think  that  somehow  or  some- 
where there  was  a  fallacy  in  the  reasoning. 


THE  SABBATH.  173 

An  official  member  of  a  church  found  himself 
far  from  home  when  overtaken  by  Saturday 
night.  He  knew  that  it  would  not  be  right  to 
travel  on  Sabbath  in  a  secular  way.  But — happy 
thought — thirty  miles  on  the  homeward  road  was 
a  little  meeting-house,  and  he  could  attend  service 
there  at  night !  So  he  mounted  his  horse,  made 
the  journey,  lied  to  God  and  his  conscience  all 
day,  and  made  all  right  by  the  beggarly  cheat  of 
a  sleepy  attendance  on  evening  preaching.  I 
never  heard  whether  the  preacher  took  the  fourth 
commandment  for  his  text. 

The  fashion  of  pleading  puerile  extenuations 
of  a  great  and  glaring  sin  is  not  confined  to  the 
laity.  Sometimes  (I  hope  but  rarely),  to  accom- 
modate a  lecture  engagement,  or  sleep  in  his  own 
bed,  or  exchange  pulpits  after  spending  half  a 
\veek  in  idleness,  or  gain  considerable  notoriety 
and  some  money  by  preaching  at  some  noted  re- 
sort of  Sabbath-breakers — sometimes,  I  say,  min- 
isters set  a  damaging,  if  not  damning,  example 
before  all  eyes.  There  is  hardly  a  train  run  on 
Lord's  day  which  may  not  hook  itself  to  the 
crazy  and  selfish  logic  of  Sabbath-breaking 


174  THE  SABBATH. 

church  members.  Is  it  ignorance  of  the  law.or 
defiance  of  the  Lawgiver  ? 

There  are  church  members  who  dream  in 
cushioned  pews  while  their  coachmen  sit,  reins  in 
hand,  through  the  wearying  service,  and  their 
servants  at  home  are  hot  and  angry  in  kitchen 
and  dining-room,  preparing  sumptuous  dinners 
for  their  self-denying  master  and  mistress  and 
more  or  less  invited  disciples  of  the  lowly  Jesus ! 
No  wonder  that  such  masters  wish  to  believe 
that  the  fourth  commandment  lias  been  repealed. 

There  are  Christian  (?)  families  whose  mem- 
bers, from  grandsire  to  youngest  reader,  are 
engaged,  through  all  the  studious  hours  of  the 
day  with  the  Sunday  newspaper  and  novels  of 
the  lighter  sort,  with  occasional  games  of  chess 
or  cards  for  variety.  These  people  are  usually 
too  tired  to  attend  evening  service  in  their  re- 
spective churches,  and  the  dear  children  can't 
go  to  preaching  after  Sabbath-school.  No  won- 
der. Friday  night  they  were  at  the  theater  till 
eleven  ;  Tuesday  night  they  attended  a  fashion- 
able party ;  Wednesday  night  they  were  at  the 
dancing-school ;  Saturday-night  they  were  at  the 


THE  SABBATH.  175 

skating-rink.  Why  did  God  make  a  Sabbath 
law  to  put  inconvenient  demands  upon  children 
who  are  being  trained  in  the  nurture  and  admo- 
nition of  the  ?  When  the  Son  of  man 

cometh  shall  .he  find  faith  upon  the  earth  ?  Who 
is  to  answer  for  souls  that  perish  through  such 
examples  ? 

I  need  not  make  mention  of  the  pomp  of  an 
empty  "  worship,"  of  forms  as  dead  as  the  souls 
that  rest  in  them,  of  the  sensationalism  which  de- 
grades the  pulpit,  of  the  vanity  that  defiles  the 
pew,  of  the  arrogance  that  repels  the  humble, 
and  the  bigotry  that  disgusts  the  sensible.  These, 
too  sadly  often,  are  spots  in  our  Sabbath  feasts 
of  charity,  clouds  without  water,  trees  without 
fruit,  twice  dead,  plucked  up  by  the  roots.  God's 
"  house  of  prayer  for  all  nations  "  is  all  too  often 
a  synagogue  of  Satan  for  the  display  of  the 
wretched  cheatery  of  a  sham  religion ;  and  Sab- 
bath is  made  the  day  for  its  chief  exhibition. 

The  very  Sabbath-school,  in  many  places,  has 
ceased  to  be  an  auxiliary  of  home  and  pulpit  in- 
struction, and  become  a  substitute  for  both.  It 
ought  not  so  to  be.  Such  a  perversion  frustrates 


176  THE  SABBATH. 

the  legitimate  design  of  one  of  the  best  of  insti- 
tutions. 

There  are  incidents  and  items  of  associated 
life,  to  many  apparently  trifling,  which  involve 
the  question  of  Christian  Sabbath-keeping.  Mu- 
tual dependence  suggests  mutual  responsibility. 
"We  have  many  men-servants  and  maid-servants 
not  of  our  immediate  households,  oxen  not  of 
our  own  herds,  strangers  not  within  our  own 
gates,  for  whose  toiling  on  the  sacred  day  we  may 
be  held  to  answer.  We  must  have  milk ;  there- 
fore the  milkman  can  enjoy  no  Sabbath.  "But 
how  can  we  be  comfortable  without  milk  ? " 
Suppose  we  should  consent  to  a  trifle  of  discomfort 
in  this  single  item  ?  "  He  will  have  to  come  to 
our  irreligious  neighbors,  and  it  adds  little  to  his 
work  to  come  to  us."  Teach  your  neighbor  a 
better  way.  "How  would  you  rear  a  family 
without  milk  ? "  Some  have  succeeded  in  rear- 
ing sons  and  daughters  without  one  call  from  the 
milkman  on  Sabbath.  "But  what  would  you 
do  if  you  had  a  sick  babe  ? "  If  I  had  a  sick 
babe  and  it  needed  milk  I  would  procure  it  at 
any  necessary  cost,  on  the  same  principle  that  I 


THE  SABBATH.  177 

would  go  for  a  doctor.  Albeit  I  would  not  de- 
mand Sabbath  visits  from  the  milkman  the  year 
round  in  anticipation  of  sickness,  or  in  remem- 
brance of  sickness  long  since  past.  Ludicrously 
enough,  this  "  argument "  of  the  sick  babe  falls 
glibly  from  the  lips  of  well-to-do  parents  of 
grown-up  children;  married  people  who  never 
had  children ;  venerable  maidens  who  are  not 
in  imminent  peril  of  that  sort  of  domestic 
affliction,  and  wrinkled  bachelors  who  will  darn 
their  own  socks  till  they  need  darned  socks  no 
more.  I  dwell  a  little  on  this  commonest  and 
cunningest"  of  the  defenses  of  Sunday  work  be- 
cause it  is  omniaudient.  But  God's  law  sweeps 
down  upon  all  evasions,  even  the  most  plausible. 
Thy  man-servant,  the  milkman,  must  rest  as  well 
as  thon. 

A  lady  has  a  costly  dress  or  hat  in  process  of 
making.  She  left  the  order  late  and  is  to  go  to 
a  party,  a  missionary  meeting,  a  carnival  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor,  on  Monday.  She  is  very 
particular,  and  will  carry  her  patronage  to  another 
establishment  if  disappointed.  The  dressmaker 

or  milliner  toils  with  aching  eyes  till  long  past 
12 


178  THE  SABBATH. 

midnight  of  Saturday.  The  work  is  not  done. 
It  must  be  finished  before  Monday  morning ;  so 
the  weary  worker  for  bread,  thoughtlessness,  and 
vanity,  must  work  on  the  Lord's  day.  O  woman, 
professed  follower  of  the  Nazarene,  thy  maid- 
servant, the  dressmaker,  must  rest  as  well  as  thou. 

The  barber  would  so  enjoy  a  rest-day  with  wife 
and  children,  a  breath  of  fragrant  air  in  the  little 
home  garden,  or  an  hour  of  spiritual  uplifting 
in  the  sanctuary ;  but  stately  old  men,  thought- 
less young  men,  consequential  rich  men,  and 
querulous  poor  men,  resident  and  transient, 
have  neglected  to  get  shaved  on  Saturday  after- 
noon or  evening  and  must  be  served  to-day. 

I  need  not  carry  the  train  of  thought  farther. 
Every  one  can,  if  he  will,  see  very  far  along  the 
line  of  Christian  practical  life.  A  supreme  de- 
sire to  do  the  will  of  God  will  give  open  vision. 
It  is  needless  to  specify  Sabbath  pleasure-riding, 
parties,  excursions  by  land  or  water,  shows, 
"  sacred  concerts,"  Sunday  papers,  and  a  hundred 
and  one  unworthy  uses  of  the  Sabbath  made  for 
man. 


THE  SABBATH.  179 


CHAPTER  XII. 
EIGHT  USES  OF  THE  SABBATH. 

rpHE  Sabbath  is  a  day  of  physical  rest.  "  Six 
X  days  shalt  thou  labor  and  do  all  thy  work  " 
— all  properly  belonging  to  that  week.  Thought- 
ful Christian  thrift  will  have  every  thing  in 
order,  outdoor  and  in,  for  the  precious  joy-day. 
All  the  practicable  cooking  will  be  done  on  Sat- 
urday, with  special  reference  to  cheerful,  taste- 
ful, grateful  meals.  Shoe-blackening,  preparation 
of  Sabbath  clothes,  bathing,  oiling  of  carriage, 
adjustment  of  harness,  and  all  the  little  things 
which  enter  into  preparation  for  a  restful  home- 
day  and  a  profitable  church-day  will  be  habitually 
and  cheerfully  attended  to  on  Saturday. 

Sabbath  is  a  holy  day.  The  -  reading  and 
conversation  of  the  day  should  wear  a  cast  of 
sober  cheerfulness,  of  grateful,  deep,  reverent 
joy.  Reading-matter  suitable  to  interest 


180  THE  SABBATH. 

instruct  children  and  youth  should  be  selected 
during  the  week  and  laid  aside  for  their  special 
and  profitable  pleasure  on  the  Lord's  day.  No 
growling  or  groaning,  fault-finding  or  back- 
biting, evil  surmising  or  tale-bearing,  should 
defile  the  tongue  and  the  day  (or  any  other  day). 
God's  word,  delightedly  studied,  should  hold  the 
supreme  place. 

Sabbath  is  a  glad  day.  As  far  as  possible 
banish  every  element  of  discontent  and  gloom. 
It  is  the  joy-day  of  the  world.  On  this  day  we 
were  begotten  again  to  a  lively  hope  and  to  a 
glorious  inheritance  by  the  resurrection  of  our 
Lord.  Occupy  the  best  room,  let  rarest  flowers 
bloom  in  every  vase;  sing  happy  Christian 
songs ;  walk  and  talk  in  the  garden ;  watch  the 
birds  building  their  nests  in  the  vines ;  converse 
about  the  resurrection,  and  what  it  did  for  the 
world  ;  teach  children  and  servants  realizingly  to 
"call  the  sabbath  a  delight,  the  holy  of  the 
LOED,  honorable." 

Sabbath  is  a  day  for  worship  and  instruction 
m  the  sanctuary.  "  Ye  shall  keep  my  sabbaths 
reverence  my  sanctuary :  I  am  the  LORD." 


THE  SABBATH.  181 

"  The  glory  of  Lebanon  shall  come  unto  thee,  the 
fir-tree,  the  pine-tree,  and  the  box  together,  to 
beautify  the  place  of  my  sanctuary ;  and  I  will 
make  the  place  of  my  feet  glorious."  "  Let  us 
consider  one  another  to  provoke  unto  love  and 
to  good  works :  not  forsaking  the  assembling — 
emovvayvyTjv  —  episunagogen  —  u  synagoguing" 
— of  ourselves  together,  as  the  manner  of  some 
is."  Episunagogen  is  a  strong  term,  and  enjoins 
the  higher  synagoguing  together  in  the  Chris- 
tian sanctuary,  above  Jewish  zeal  and  Jewish 
privileges.  The  duty  of  attending  the  stated 
services  of  the  house  of  God  is  as  plain  as  that 
of  keeping  the  Sabbath  holy.  The  design  of 
the  Sabbatic  institute  would  be  largely  frustrated 
without  consecrated  places  of  teaching  and  wor- 
ship. A  man  who  dishonors  the  place  of  worship 
by  needless  absence  and  neglect  on  the  holy  day 
violates  the  Sabbath.  And  it  is  no  abatement  of 
the  misuse  if  he  stay  at  home  and  read  the  life 
of  Henry  Martyn,  or  his  Bible,  or  attempt  to 
compromise  by  praying  more  than  usual.  Duty 
admits  of  no  proxy,  no  substitute,  no  compromise. 
The  place  for  Christians,  parents  and  children, 


182  THE  SABBATH. 

young  and  old,  is  in  the  assemblies  of  God's  peo- 
ple at  the  stated  hours  of  public  worship.  We 
have  only  to  reflect  on  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quence of  universal  neglect  in  order  to  realize 
the  force  of  individual  obligation.  So  imperative 
is  the  duty  and  so  priceless  the  privilege  that 
the  disciples  of  the  early  centuries  periled  life  to 
perform  the  one  and  enjoy  the  other.  Who,  then, 
will  measure  our  guilt  and  shame  if  we,  with  no 
jealous  Jews  to  spy  upon  us,  no  pagan  laws  to 
imprison  us,  no  red  hand  of  the  persecutor  to 
pursue  us,  no  need  for  concealment  in  dens  and 
caves — if  we,  whose  houses  of  worship  stand 
boldly  on  public  streets,  whose  bells  call  to 
prayer  with  a  voice  which  no  power  dares  at- 
tempt to  silence;  if  we,  from  happy  homes 
guarded  by  Christian  law  and  sentiment,  with 
paved  and  lighted  city  streets,  and  broad  and 
safe  country  roads ;  if  we,  with  full  tables  and 
golden  harvest  fields ;  if  we,  favored  above  many 
— leave  our  empty  pews  to  cry  out  against  our  in- 
difference, to  discourage  the  spirit  of  the  faithful, 
and  sanction  the  negligence  of  the  supine,  and 
embolden  the  profligacy  of  the  profane  ? 


THE  SABBATH.  183 

The  Sabbath  is  as  agreeable  to  the  wise  benef- 
icence of  God  and  as  necessary  to  the  welfare  of 
men  as  in  any  age.  It  is  as  binding  upon  your 
conscience,  reader,  as  it  was  upon  that  of  Joshua, 
or  Caleb,  or  Paul,  or  Justin  Martyr,  or  our  Pil- 
grim Fathers,  who  sought  and  found  on  these 

shores 

"Freedom  to  worship  God." 

The  sacred  keeping  of  the  Sabbath  must  ever 
remain  a  prominent  feature  in  the  distinction  be- 
tween those  who  serve  God  and  those  who  serve 
him  not.  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  those 
who  find  no  pleasure  in  keeping  the  day  of  the 
Lord  holy  here  will  be  found  meet  for  the  Sdb- 
~batismos  of  the  life  beyond  ?  THE  SABBATH  WAS 
MADE  FOR  MAN.  "  Remember  the  sabbath  day,  to 
keep  it  holy,"  bears  as  much  of  the  wisdom, 
authority,  and  love  of  God,  as  "  Thou  shall  not 
kill." 


INDEX  AND  BRIEF  ANALYSIS  OF  CHAPTERS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  SABBATH,  ITS  INSTITUTION,  ITS  PERVERSION  INTO 
THE  DAY  OP  THE  SUN,  ITS  DEGRADATION  TO  SUN- 
WORSHIP 17 

Early  notices  of  the  weekly  division  of  time 19 

Early  prevalence  of  the  Sabean  idolatry  with  its 

sun-worship 21 

Sun-worship  in  Egypt  —  Sunday  the  perverted 

primeval  Sabbath 24 

The  Hebrews  worshiped  the  Egyptian  sun-god, 

Osiris , 26 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  NAME  SABBATH 30 

Shabath  means  more  than  rest,  or  seventh,  or 

week,  or  all  of  them  together 32 

Sabbath  is  a  sacred  proper  name  of  a  movable 

festival 39 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   EXODUS— THE  REVISED  CALENDAR—THE  NEW 

SABBATH 44 

A  new  beginning  of  the  Hebrew  year  —  Abib 

changes  place  with  Tisri 48 


186  INDEX  AND  BRIEF  'ANALYSIS. 

The  15th  of  Abib,  the  day  of  the  Exode,  made         PAa« 
the  initial  of  the  septenary  Sabbaths  of  the 
Hebrews  —  Their  Sabbath  began  in  the  even- 
ing, to  commemorate  the  passover  supper.  .  .  49 

Further  proofs  of  Hebrew  sun-worship  and  change 

of  Sabbath  .............................  53 

The  Hebrews  had  a  Sabbath  out  of  the  septenary 

order  ...................................  56 

The  revised  Hebrew  calendar  ..................          58 


CHAPTER  IY. 

SABBATH  LAW  ................................          60 

Formally  announced  at  Sinai  —  Decalogue  univer- 
sal law  —  Unlike  Hebrew  statutes  and  cere- 
monials .................................  64 

The  Fourth  Commandment  is  the  Sabbath  law..  .  67 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  LAW  OP  THE  SABBATH  ........................          70 

Requires  six  days  of  virtuous  labor  .....  .  ........  71 

Requires  the  suspension  of  secular  toil  in  order  to 

the  higher  uses  —  Every  seventh  convenient 

and  usual  division  of  time  .................  71 

Adapted  to  the  shape  and  motions  of  the  earth 

and  obeyable  in  all  latitudes  and  longitudes.  .  72 

The  theory  of  the  seventh  day,  in  absolute  astro- 

nomical and  septenary  identity,  absurd,  and 

the  laws  so  interpreted  unobeyable  .........  73 

It  is  a  relative  and  ordinal  seventh  every-where.  .  74 

An  accommodation  of  time  imperative  —  Which 

party  should  yield  ?  ......................  80 

Statutory  provisions  not  to  be  confounded  with 

the  law..  ...................          82 


INDEX  AND  BRIEF  ANALYSIS.  187 

CHAPTER  VI.  PA6B 

A  CHANGE  OP  SABBATH  FORETOLD  AND  FORESHADOWED.  84 
One  great  promise  runs  through  Israelitish  his- 
tory— And  one  day,  the  morrow  after  the  Sab- 
bath, particularly  distinguished 85 

Reasons  for  the  change 90 

"  Teaching  facts  " 92 

Recapitulation s. 96 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  LORD  OP  THE  SABBATH  MADE  THE  FORESHADOWED 

CHANGE,  AND  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  CERTIFIED  IT 101  * 

Right  rendering  of  Matt,  xxviii,  1 ;  Mark  xvi,  2, 
9;  Luke  xxiv,  1;  John  xx,  1,  19;  Acts  xx, 
7  ;  1  Cor.  xvi,  2 ;  Acts  xiii,  42,  44 — "  Contem- 
porary usage  "  of  the  Rabbins  not  authority.  105 

Argument  from  Providence 114 

Early  Christian  usage  and  views — Justin  Martyr..         116 
The  Roman  or  common  day  adopted — Evangelists 

— Alford 119 

General  effect 120 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PATRISTIC  TESTIMONY  AND  USAGE 123 

Competent  witnesses  of  matters  of  fact 123 

Why  the  fathers,  in  disputing  with  Jews,  did  not 

use  the  name  Sabbath  for  resurrection  day. .  124 
The  escape  of  the  Christians  from  the  siege  of 

Jerusalem ^ 126 

A  flagrant  falsification  of  history  corrected 127 

No  Sabbath  or  all  Sabbath  theory 139 

Logical  effects  of  the  preceding  argument 140 

Mathematical  demonstration 144 


188  INDEX  AND  BRIEF  ANALYSIS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
OPINIONS  OP  WISE  MEN 145 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  GROUNDS  AND  CLAIMS  OP  A  CIVIL  SABBATH 152 

The  right  to  enact  a  civil  Sabbath  law  generally 

sustained 152 

Opinions  in  support  of  its  value — Count  Monta- 
lembert,  La  Place,  Senator  Bayard,  Joseph 
Cook,  Justice  Woodward,  ex-Chief  Justice 
Agnew,  Judge  M.  B.  Hagans,  Judge  Allen  G. 

Thurman,  Rev.  M.  Lockwood 152 

Vast  moral  and  educational  advantages 160 

Lord  Macaulay 162 

Scientific  reasons 163 

Who  oppose  the  law 1 64 

A  civil  Sabbath,  how  framed 166 

The  duty  of  employers  toward  the  employed 167 

CHAPTER  XL 
PREVALENT  ABUSES  OP  THE  SABBATH 170 

CHAPTER  XII. 
RIGHT  USES  OP  THE  SABBATH.  .  179 


RETURN         CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

TO  ^~                      198  Main  Stacks 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS. 

Renewls  and  Recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  the  due 

Books  may  be  Renewed  by  calling  642-3405. 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

SENT  ON  ILL 

SEP  0  8  1999 

U.  C.  BERKELEY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFOf 
i  cv 


409616 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


